This film needs a couple strong warnings before you watch it or show it to someone else. First, it is an incredibly adult film filled with horrific violence--much of it directed towards children. It is NOT a film to show children or someone who hates violent films. Second, if you have been a victim of sexual and/or physical abuse, watching the film might bring up a lot of unwanted feelings and memories. Don't say I didn't warn you.
Despite these warnings, I am NOT saying to skip this movie. "Sleepers" is a brilliant and extremely well-constructed film that will keep you riveted on the screen. It is a film you simply can't ignore or feel ambivalent about, as it has so much to say and does it all so well--with wonderful performances, writing and direction.
The film begins with a horrific murder. Why these two men would see someone and then decide on the spot to brutally murder the guy is unknown--and you learn through the course of the film why this happened. Sure, the pair WERE career criminals and violent men, but there was far more to it than this...and it all stems from their troubled childhoods in a reform school from hell! And, you learn that the murder victim was no victim after all--the guy was a monster and truly deserved so much worse! What makes all this so interesting, however, is that the prosecutor happens to know EXACTLY why the man was killed, as he, too, had been sent to the reform school and knew about he horrors that occurred there. And so, despite his pledge to do his job and honor the law, he decides to deliberately do a horrible job in prosecuting--as he, too, is thrilled that they murdered the scoundrel.
What makes the film even better is that although this murder was justified, the film does NOT have a pat ending. In fact, the way it ends and the wonderfully realistic epilogue make the film. Terrific and honest in how it tells the tale--being truthful to the characters and story from start to finish. See this film...
Sleepers
1996
Action / Crime / Drama / Thriller
Sleepers
1996
Action / Crime / Drama / Thriller
Plot summary
As children, Lorenzo Carcaterra - Shakes to his friends - Michael Sullivan, Tommy Marcano, and John Reilly were inseparable. They grew up in Hell's Kitchen, a far from perfect neighborhood, one filled as Shakes says with scams and shake downs, but one where the rules were known and easily understood by its residents. The one adult who they admired was Father Bobby Carelli, who understood them as kids more than most adults and more than he himself would like to admit. In 1967, their lives would change forever when a typical teenage prank went wrong which led to the four of them being sentenced to various terms at Wilkinson Home for Boys, a reformatory. There, they were physically, emotionally and sexually abused primarily by Sean Nokes, the predatory lead guard of their cell block, and fellow guards Ralph Ferguson, Henry Addison, and Adam Styler, although there were other decent figures of authority at the home, including a few other guards. Their time at the home affected the four, not all who were able to emerge from the experience to regroup their lives. In their want to forget about the experience, they made a vow not to talk about it either between themselves or with others. Fast forward thirteen years, with Tommy and Johnny being career criminals, Michael an assistant district attorney and Shakes a newspaper writer, their friendship on the surface more loose than it was when they were children. When Tommy and John unexpectedly spot Nokes at a local restaurant, it leads to Shakes and Michael banding together to exact revenge not only on Nokes but all four of the guards who abused them. Michael had long mapped out a plan even before Tommy and John saw Nokes, but that sighting and its aftermath alters the plan. Beyond the precarious position Tommy and John place themselves into, Michael has the most to lose even if the plan succeeds. Most of the plan implementation is left to Shakes who has to enlist the machine of Hell's Kitchen, including mob boss King Benny, and their childhood friend, social worker Carol Martinez, who currently is John's girlfriend. Beyond co-opting aging lawyer Danny Snyder, who admits he may not be the best choice as an alcoholic who is no longer near the top of his game, the plan is threatened by a key piece, the need for an unreproachable figure to perjure him or herself, that person who Michael and Shakes hopes will be Father Bobby. Father Bobby, even if he knew of the abuse, may not be able to do his friends this enormous favor of an illegal nature, he who has to balance the morality of the situation in his own mind in deciding what to do.
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Brilliant but not for everyone.
Powerful and Flawed
You can draw a straight line between Sleepers and such films as The Mayor from Hell, Crime School, Knock on Any Door right up to the Nineties when Sleepers was released. All of those films from the bygone studio era were in whole or in part about the abuses in juvenile reform schools. Mix a small amount of Going My Way in there and you got Sleepers.
Going My Way, I'm sure a few laughs are being had with that one, but what is Robert DeNiro, but a very up to date Father O'Malley. Granted he isn't musical and he's not about to tame the tough kids of the neighborhood by making them a choir as Bing Crosby did, but in fact Bing and Barry Fitzgerald's parish was indeed in the Hell's Kitchen setting that Sleepers is. Bing and Frank McHugh tell a couple of lies as well for a good cause and he's as protective of his charges as DeNiro is of his. He's also an athlete like DeNiro and probably could get physical as DeNiro was ready to do after one of his kids is assaulted by his mom's boyfriend.
Sleepers is about four youths growing up in Hell's Kitchen in the sixties and what happened to them when a juvenile prank goes dramatically wrong. The four get sent to a youth facility where they are beaten and sexually abused by sadistic guards, chiefly Kevin Bacon. Two of them grow up to be stone cold killers and on a chance meeting with Bacon, pump several bullets in him and kill him.
The other two grow up to be Jason Patric, journalist, and Brad Pitt Assistant District Attorney. Of course they know what the real story in the killing is and set in motion a plan for revenge after a fictional hero they learned about in The Count of Monte Cristo.
The flaw with Sleepers is the fact it is based on the premise that because of juvenile records are sealed, no one will get the connection between Pitt and Patric, the defendants, and the victim in the case. That would have fallen apart by dint of the fact that any District Attorney's Office would do a deep background check on Pitt if he applied to work there. Those seals aren't completely inviolate, I doubt Pitt would have ever been hired in the first place.
This is the same criticism I had with another powerful drama about the justice system, 12 Angry Men. A deeply flawed premise is in the creation of that film as well. Doesn't prevent it from being a well done film and the same is the case with Sleepers.
DeNiro and Bacon come off best as the two influences on the kid's lives for good and evil respectively. I think you will also enjoy Dustin Hoffman as the alcoholic defense attorney and Vittorio Gassman as the neighborhood boss.
Even a flawed drama can be an enjoyable one.
The Count of Monte Cristo
It's Hell's Kitchen in the summer 1966. Lorenzo 'Shakes' Carcaterra, Tommy Marcano, Michael Sullivan and John Reilly are prankster best friends watched over by Father Bobby Carillo (Robert De Niro). The next year, they play a prank on a hot dog vendor that almost kills a man. They are all sentenced to Wilkenson Home for Boys in upstate New York where they are abused and beaten by the guards led by Sean Nokes (Kevin Bacon) and the other hardened inmates. In 1981, Tommy (Billy Crudup) and John Reilly (Ron Eldard) kill Sean Nokes. In prison, they tell Shakes (Jason Patric) that it's one down. Michael Sullivan (Brad Pitt) is now an assistant D.A. He decides to use the court case to bring the abuse out in the open unbeknownst to Tommy, Reilly and their alcoholic washed-up lawyer Danny Snyder (Dustin Hoffman) with a "slight drug problem". Carol (Minnie Driver) is a childhood friend who is now a social worker. Sleepers are anybody who spent time in juvy.
This is too long. The length is probably a problem without a good solution. It demands a ruthlessness from Barry Levinson that may be a little beyond. Every scene needs to be trimmed.
I don't like the narration. I don't usually like narration with some exceptions. This is not one of those exceptions. The adult narration also cause additional problems for the kids. The kids had problems to maintain screen presence but they keep getting interrupted by an adult version. The transition between the kids and the adults is a bit abrupt. It's hard to keep the 4 kids straight already. It's even harder to keep the 4 adults straight while maintaining the connection to their kid self.
The sexual abuse is a bit awkward. It has to be careful not to turn it into a melodrama. It goes overboard a few times for me. As for the courtroom, the movie struggles to maintain the tension. It's also a struggle to keep track of the plan. Overall, this is an ambitious movie with a few noticeable problems.