The story centers on two fathers and two sons. Set in a period of Depression-era gangland legend, drawing on such historical figures as Al Capone, Eliot Ness, Capone lieutenant Frank Nitti, and Irish mob patriarch and Capone ally John Looney, Collins’s story takes the form of a father-son coming-of-age tale with shades of Kazuo Koike’s manga graphic novel Lone Wolf and Cub, which told a similar story set in feudal Japan. I also discovered that the movie’s pervasive Catholic imagery was ripped from more integral themes of confession, forgiveness, and redemption that in the book are tied to a faith-affirming final revelation that provides a moral context for the whole story, but which is omitted from the film. ("Graphic novels" use comic-book storytelling for longer, and hopefully more substantial, stories than traditional comic books.) Immediately I understood why someone would want to film this story - and how the film had gone wrong. Dissatisfied after the screening, I went out and bought the original 1998 graphic novel, written by novelist and "Dick Tracy" scribe Max Allan Collins and illustrated by comic-book artist Richard Piers Rayner ("Swamp Thing"), and read it in one sitting.
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