9. Tom Hanks - Michael Sullivan (Road to Perdition)
Criminally underrated graphic novel
Road To Perdition was adapted into a film courtesy of
American Beauty and
Skyfall director Sam Mendes, who took out some of the more pulp-orientated aspects of the source material (no characters sliding down banisters unloading machine gun hell here) and crafted a far more quiet and emotional picture. This actually worked, whether you're a fan of the movie or not - having read the graphic novel, though, I doubt anybody pictured nice guy Tom Hanks in the role of the comic's ruthless protagonist. Tom Hanks isn't the Michael Sullivan of the paper-bound
Road To Perdition, although I suppose it must be said - given Mendes' approach to the material - he isn't really trying to be. It's tough to find menace and darkness in a Tom Hanks character on familiarity alone: we've come to accept him as one of the good guys, no matter what he's doing. But the decision to cast him here pays off and we're afford the chance to see the actor in a new light. He's not the Sullivan of the original, that's for sure, but Hanks grants us a great, vivid character nonetheless.