In short: A thing of beauty. Loved it.

Based on the graphic novel comic written by Max Allan Collinsand illustrated by Richard Piers Rayner
(The comic was inspired by the Japanese comic and movie series Lone Wolf and Cub by Kazuo Koike)
Screenplay by David Self
Directed by Sam Mendes

Bonds of loyalty are put to the test when a hitman's son witnesses what his father does for a living.

Tom Hanks Michael Sullivan
Paul Newman John Rooney
Jude Law Maguire
Tyler Hoechlin Michael Sullivan, Jr.
Jennifer Jason Leigh Annie Sullivan
Stanley Tucci Frank Nitti
Daniel Craig Connor Rooney
Liam Aiken Peter Sullivan

Going in, I thought I would fall asleep in this movie. I heard from both a friend and critics’ reviews that it was very slow, and I hadn’t had a lot of sleep the night before. But after the first instigating event, I was hooked. Character-wise, the movie was a vast improvement over the comic book story, owing no doubt to the inevitable condensement that is inherent to the medium of regular-length comic books. Both Tom Hanks’ and Paul Newman’s characters are deepened and more nuanced in the film. Whereas in the graphic novel, Sullivan (called O’Sullivan) is a more stoic, violent avenging angel, Hanks’ portrayal is that of a caring father, and his nice-guy persona is hard to completely put aside when watching the movie.
In the novel, Rooney (A real-life tabloid-newspaper publisher whose name was Looney) is a somewhat unstable old man prone to more animated outbursts of anger, and his son more understated in his impetuousness, Newman’s Rooney is a more intelligent, thoughtful man torn between family and loyalty to his faithful lieutenant, and it is his son who is the more unstable of the two. The cast is also improved by the addition of Maguire, who is sent after Sullivan and his son, and who provides greater suspense and dimension than the character(s) given this job in the book. The cinematography is as good as you’ve heard, and rather than glorify gangsters, this story is a tragedy that doesn’t flinch about the horrors of how young Michael Jr. loses his innocence.
---The one thing the graphic novel gave more detail to was the series of bank heists that O’Sullivan/Sullivan engages in to flush out his target, many of which display his cunning and creativity. Whereas in the movie he almost seems like a reluctant killer, in the book, he is a cool unflinching professional when it comes blowing away those protecting his target of revenge, and known as "The Angel," by terrified mob men who shuffle out of his path, even when he shows up on friendly business. In the movie, this series of heists, which are committed more to provoke his target’s protectors into releasing him, are alluded to with a montage of dissolved clips, and although it may have been a good idea to keep the film under two hours, there were a few really good sequences—one for example, involving a showboat gambling operation of Capone’s that goes up in smoke—that we never get to see.
---Bottom line—if you like good drama, GO SEE THIS MOVIE.

NITS, NOTES AND DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE COMIC BOOK (AND REAL LIFE) AND THE MOVIE:
The grown-up Michael writing this story is used as an framing device at the very beginning and very end of the story, when we see him grown up, and see what occupation he chosen. No such framing device is used in the movie, and the only hint given as to Michael’s future occupation is a line of dialogue that foreshadows it.

The characters portrayed by Paul Newman and Daniel Craig are named Rooney in the movie, but the name was actually Looney, and so named in the comic book. The name was changed because it sounded too "comic-booky," even though Max Alan Collins didn’t invent the name; it was the person’s actual name. The main characters’ names are O’Sullivan, but changed to Sullivan in the movie.

My friend Chris Lopez noticed that when Rooney plays dice with Michael and Peter, he uses translucent green plastic dice. Chris asserted that plastic wasn’t invented until the 1950s. I checked, and although the synthetic plastic industry actually started in 1909, it did not begin to blossom until the late 1930s. Did they really have plastic dice in 1931? Weren’t they still using ivory?

Frank Nitti had a mustache (and in the comic book, which Richard Piers Rayner illustrated using reference of the real people). He doesn’t have one in the movie.

Both Chris and I also noticed that both Sullivan and Maguire use automatic pistols throughout the movie. Although automatic pistols were around since the late 1800s, were they really that widespread, even among criminals, in 1931? The ones Sullivan and Maguire use look pretty modern, but maybe I’m just ignorant of them.

Why in the WORLD did Sullivan leave Michael in the car when he went into the diner to eat? He knows Rooney is after him, that they know what his car looks like, and probably his license plate, yet he leaves Michael in the car?!!

Al Capone appeared in the comic book in scenes involving Frank Nitti, but does not appear in the movie.

My friend Chris noticed that the sound of spent shell casings falling to the floor after Sullivan uses his gun is present only at the end when he kills his last target, but not earlier in the film.

SPOILER NITS:
In the book, (and I think in real life), O’Sullivan gives Eliot Ness incriminating documents linking Looney to Capone, and tells Eliot Ness that he wants Looney to die slowly in jail with the knowledge that his son Connor died violently. Looney is holed up in an adobe ranch house in the Southwest, where Eliot Ness and his men raided the place and arrested him. In the movie, Sullivan kills Rooney himself, and Eliot Ness is not in the story at all.

At the end of the story, Sullivan finds Bob and Sara’s bodies in the book, but finds only an empty house stripped of all furniture in the movie. In the book, Sullivan was not shot by anyone in the middle of the film, nor did he and Michael befriend a farm couple who tended Sullivan’s wound (although the second the wife told Sullivan that she and her husband met too late to have children, I knew what would happen at the end of the movie), nor was there any Maguire character. Sullivan was untouched until the very end of the movie, where his killer, an insignificant no-name who was not indicated to be a crime scene photographer (as in the movie), shoots him, and is then killed himself by and Michael. Michael also kills a thug sneaking up on his father in the middle of the story, but in the movie, Michael never kills anyone, and adamantly refuses when Sullivan tries to make him hold a gun, perhaps to make the movie less controversial. In the comic book, the dying Sullivan then orders Michael to take him to a church for confession and last rites. In the movie, Sullivan dies in Aunt Sara’s house, and Michael goes to live with the farm couple. In the book, Michael goes to live in an orphanage, and as aforementioned, we see the grown-up Michael in his chosen profession.

Is there any reason why Maguire is waiting at the end for Sullivan? Didn't Nitti agree to let Sullivan go? There are three possibilities:

(1). Nitti betrayed Sullivan, which seems out of character.

(2). Nitti never called Maguire, which also seems out of character.

(3). Maguire holds a grudge, which may be true, as he is a psycho and wants his photo. I'm just curious.

Funny thing is, Mike, the same thing happened in the book. Perhaps they let Sullivan get to Connor Rooney for the stated reasons, but decided that letting Sullivan get away with all he did to Capone's operation would make Capone appear weak and vulnerable, so he decided to kill Sullivan after Sullivan killed Connor, figuring that Sullivan would no longer be on the run, have cooled off, and not be looking over his shoulder so often.

In the classic movie version of "The Untouchables" (1987), Frank Nitti (Billy Drago) didn't have a mustache either.

The August 16th edition of The Comic Buyer's Guide (#1500) reports that Max Alan Collins has signed with William Morrow of New York to write two sequels to the story. Collins, who stated that he originally conceived of the story as a trilogy, will sideline his Nathan Heller historical detective novels for the next two years to to write Road to Purgatory and Road to Paradise, which will focus on Michael O'Sullivan Jr.'s road to revenge and redemption. Collins will publish them as novels, but stated that if interest allows, he would like them to be adapted into graphic novels, as the first story was originally published, and for Richard Piers Rayner, who illustrated the original, to illustrate them well.

Collins is also negotiating with a major comic book publisher that wasn't named in the piece (though it's a safe bet that it's DC, since Paradox Press, which published the original Road to Perdition, is an imprint of DC) to do a separate graphic novel tentatively called Tales from the Road to Perdition, which would explore the adventure the father and son shared while on their quest for Connor Looney. Collins writes in the Introduction to the original graphic novel that he deliberately wrote it in a way that left gaps in which future stories that could explore more detailed moments in Michael Sr. and Michael Jr.'s journey could be set.

Binky Melnick, commenting on the movie on Roger Ebert's site at http://www.suntimes.com/ebert/index.html, said he found it very difficult to buy the notion of all those gangsters wearing wool coats in the rain, stating that such coats smell very badly when wet, that knowledgeable gangsters would know better to wear raincoats, and that he kept thinking, "My God! How can they stand upright with 20 pounds of stinky wet sheep hanging from their shoulders?"

(3). Maguire holds a grudge, which may be true, as he is a psycho and wants his photo. I'm just curious.

I'd hold a grudge if someone shot me and left scars on my face.

Does anybody know what kind of gun Jude's character (Maguire) uses? It may just be a fictional/prop gun, due to the odd loading action, but I just thought I'd ask. I believe this is the first movie where I had no idea what a particular gun was.