sleepers reviews
------------------------------------------THE LOS ANGELES TIMES-------------------------------------------
'Sleepers' is the story of
an out-of-control prank, four teenagers' loss of innocence and
the payback they devise as adults.
by KENNETH TURAN , TIMES FILM CRITIC
Friday October 18, 1996
From day one everything about "Sleepers" has been so overblown and exaggerated that it's not a shock to find the film has turned out that very way.
The fuss started when "Sleepers" was published as a book. Despite a lack of hard evidence, author Lorenzo Carcaterra insisted that his contrived tale of horrors inflicted on four teenage boys and the outlandish revenge they concocted as adults was a true story. The "is it or isn't it" controversy quickly pushed the book onto bestseller lists, which probably was the idea all along.
Just as inevitably, the commotion attracted the notice of Hollywood, and Barry Levinson eventually got the assignment to write the screenplay and direct a cast that came to include Robert De Niro, Dustin Hoffman, Kevin Bacon, Jason Patric and Brad Pitt.
Levinson's first film also involved a group of close male friends, but "Sleepers" is closer to De Sade than "Diner" in feeling. Starting with a self-important first sentence ("This is a true story about friendship that runs deeper than blood"), the film's tone works overtime at mythologizing tawdry incidents into some ultimate epic about the lost innocence of youth. Gilded trash is more like it.
There's a reason for this thirsting for Olympus. At least a third of "Sleepers' " 2 hours and 21 minutes focuses on scenes of repeated sexual abuse and rape of teenage boys. Though Levinson and cinematographer Michael Ballhaus bring considerable filmmaking skill to these depictions, as atrocity piles on atrocity most audiences will begin to wonder how sadism has come to equal entertainment. By pumping up the poetry and importance of the surrounding story, "Sleepers" is desperately trying to justify the torture it inflicts on viewers.
Discomfort of a different kind is in store for fans of Pitt, Patric and Hoffman, for they don't appear until the film's second hour. "Sleepers" opens in the summer of 1966, when its four protagonists are young teenage boys living in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan, described with typical artificiality in the film's voice-over as "a place of innocence ruled by corruption."
The voice belongs to the adult Lorenzo (Patric), known as Shakes because of his interest in literature. His words guide us through the neighborhood saints and sinners of his childhood, introducing us to hard but fair Father Bobby (De Niro), "a friend who just happened to be a priest," and the local crime boss, King Benny (a charming performance by veteran Italian actor Vittorio Gassman). And of course we meet the young Shakes and his three pals, friends like there have never been friends since the Earth began.
Though King Benny tells the boys they're not as tough as they think ("Somebody is going to eat you up like appetizers and forget you by dessert"), they don't listen until it's too late and they've committed the out-of-control prank that leads to an enforced stay in the Wilkinson Home for Boys, a.k.a. Sadism Central. There they fall under the sway of a sneeringly evil guard named Sean Nokes (Bacon) and have the nasty experiences that leave them, the voice-over weeps, "each in his own cell, each in his own pain."
Once the four are released, "Sleepers" flashes forward to 1981, when two of the guys have become murderous thugs, a third an assistant district attorney (Pitt) and Shakes a newspaper reporter. Suddenly a chance for revenge against Nokes and the system comes up, a screwy scheme that involves Father Bobby, King Benny, a run-down lawyer named Danny Snyder (Hoffman), a local girl who knew them when (Minnie Driver), an irrepressible local grocery store owner (a scene-stealing Frank Medrano) and too many implausible coincidences to list.
Because it's more low key and features effective acting and less mythologizing, the second half of "Sleepers" is easier to take than what's come before. But, complicated though it is, the revenge plot takes place mostly in a courtroom and does not make for terribly compelling viewing, which may be why the film keeps flashing back to those horrific scenes in the Wilkinson Home.
In craft terms alone, "Sleepers" is considerably better than average filmmaking, but it's difficult to take this film as seriously as it takes itself. "Sleepers" wants us to believe it's a classy morality play, but Shakes provides a better epitaph. "You know," he says, "everything in this neighborhood is a shakedown or a scam." Present company not excluded.
---------------------------------------------TNT ROUGH CUT------------------------------------------------------
| Barry Levinson SLEEPERS (Warner) R What's it worth? $6.00 (movies rated on a scale from $1.00 (wait for cable) to $7.50 (pay full price)) Revenge is served up cold and bloody in this dark drama based on Lorenzo Carcaterra's controversial book. It is 1967, and following a prank turned tragic, four childhood friends from New York's Hell's Kitchen are sent to the Wilkinson Home for Boys for a year. During their incarceration, the young boys and are subjected to unimaginable physical and sexual abuse at the hands of corrupt guards, led by a nasty Kevin Bacon. Fourteen years later, two of the boys, now men, meet one of their tormentors in a bar and shoot him to death on the spot. It is then up to the network of Sleepers--boys who spent time in the juvenile detention hall--to help them get away with murder. With a stellar cast including Robert DeNiro as the boys' priest and mentor, Dustin Hoffman as an alcoholic attorney and Brad Pitt as the man who uses the justice system to indict an institution instead of his friends, Sleepers already has an advantage over its dramatic box office competition. But it is director Levinson's camera work that will make you sit through more than two and a half hours of angst, as he turns both the poverty and violence of Hell's Kitchen as well as the despair of juvenile hall into a dark lyric you can almost feel. One note to Mr. Pitt: Don't stand so close to Sleepers' narrator Jason Patric; if this were a beauty contest, you'd be taking home second prize. -- Wendy Wilson |
by Joel Siegel
SLEEPERS does not describe the audience. A little bit of history-- the first time Dustin Hoffman and Robert De Niro have been in a film together. And a lot of controversy. The writer called the book a true story. The Catholic Church and the Manhattan DA's office call it fiction. It generated so much controversy I thought maybe Joe Klein wrote it. But on film, fact or fiction, it doesn't make any difference. It is a terrific movie.
Hell's Kitchen is cookin'. Hell's Kitchen is boiling over. This is one of those films you take home with you, whether you want to or not. Amazing cast: Kevin Bacon, Robert De Niro, Brad Pitt-- dark hair, Noo Yawk accent, he is the real thing. And speaking of taking things home with you, Dustin Hoffman just might take a little statue home with him Oscar night.
Four kids from Hell's Kitchen, summer, 1967. It starts as a joke, but it turns serious. Real serious. A careless prank results in murder. Writer-director Barry Levinson perfectly evokes both the dead-end-kid nostalgia of an old neighborhood on Manhattan's Westside and the terrors of the reformatory where the boys are sent. There, they are physically and sexually abused by a ring of guards led by Kevin Bacon. Levinson, an Oscar winning director, never shows us the abuse. He knows our imaginations will magnify the terrors.
Fifteen years after the horrors of the reformatory, two of the boys see Bacon in a Hell's Kitchen bar. Payback time. Brad Pitt is the young DA assigned to prosecute. He takes the case-- not to win, but lose. He was one of the four. Jason Patric was the other. SLEEPERS is a film set in motion by an incredible ensemble cast. Robert De Niro as the neighborhood priest, international star Vittorio Gassman is the mob boss who hires a drunken, dissolute, disinclined Dustin Hoffman for the defense. This piece, so prefectly etched, earned cheers from a roomful of critics.
Associated Press
by Bob ThomasDumas' classic novel of revenge, The Count of Monte Cristo, provides the theme of Sleepers, an engrossing, highly original film from Barry Levinson (Rain Man).
During a period of terrible degradation, a boy acquires a copy of The Count of Monte Cristo, in which an unjustly convicted man in later years plots recrimination against his tormentors in prison. The boy, and another companion who admired the book, grow up and devise an elaborate plot to bring doom to their own captors.
Levinson, who directed, wrote and co-produced Sleepers, managed to attract a dream cast of male stars. Yet, with two exceptions, he uses them only in the second half of the film.
Based on a book by Lorenzo Carcaterra, the story begins with four young buddies in New York's Hell's Kitchen, from which have emerged such achievers as James Cagney plus an array of candidates for the electric chair.
The boys, most of them from brutal households, band together and engage in street games and petty crimes. The parish priest (Robert De Niro) has come from such a background himself, and he tries to counsel the boys about right and wrong. His lessons seem to have little effect.
One day, the boys play a prank on a hot dog seller. The mischief results in a terrible accident, and the boys are tried and sent to a reform school. The place proves worse than anything Dumas pictured at the Chateau D'If.
The four inmates are commandeered by a sadistic guard (Kevin Bacon at his nastiest). With three other guards, he beats and humiliates them, uses them sexually and revels in his cruelty. This is the sequence in which Levinson risks going over the edge. It is hard to endure without averting one's eyes.
Now the boys are adults. Two (Ron Eldard, Billy Crudup) are New York's most notorious hitmen. Another (Brad Pitt) has become an assistant district attorney. The fourth (Jason Patric) is a newspaperman and narrator of the events.
When his two friends are charged with murder, Pitt volunteers to try the case (no one seems to know of his association with the accused). He enlists Patric in a daring plan to throw the case and wreak vengeance on the vicious guards. Patric calls upon his underworld acquaintances and priest De Niro for help.
The plot and the trial are the most arresting parts of Sleepers, especially with the contribution of Dustin Hoffman as the over-the-hill defense attorney.
Levinson has drawn fine performances from all his actors, including the four boys. Minnie Driver adds a welcome note of compassion as the quartet's sweetheart. Vittorio Gassman is riveting as a suave old don.
Sleepers is a Warner Bros. release produced by Levinson and Steve Golin. The rating is R. Not recommended for children because of the beatings and sexual punishment. Also language, brutal killings and brief nudity. Running time: 142 minutes.
Movie revives critics' cry: Story isn't true
By Ann Oldenburg and Elizabeth Snead, USA TODAY
Let Sleepers lie?
No, says the Catholic Church.
Lorenzo Carcaterra's best seller comes to the screen Friday with an all-star cast and resurrects an argument that began soon after the book was published last year: Is the story truth or fiction?
It's "a hoax that smears the Catholic school and church," insists William Donohue, head of the New York-based Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights. "It poisons the already poisoned atmosphere of anti-Catholicism. We know it's a fraud."
Hollywood's response? It doesn't matter whether it's fact or fable.
"It's not about the right and the wrong," says director Barry Levinson. "It's about all of those gray areas."
What so enrages Catholic officials is the portrayal in both the book and the film of a priest who lies.
He perjures himself to help two boys who grew up in his church in the 1960s beat a murder rap 20 years later. The two, conspiring with two other buddies - one of whom is the author - take revenge on a reform school guard who tortured and raped them.
Carcaterra was paid a reported $2.1 million for the movie rights. This week, he slammed his door in a New York reporter's face, refusing to discuss the issue. Sleepers' publisher, Ballantine Books, maintains the book is nonfiction. And Warner Bros. has no comment.
"They lie so much," says Kevin Nelan, pastor of Sacred Heart of Jesus Church, the Hell's Kitchen church described in the book. He's referring to everyone involved in the movie - Carcaterra, who has a co-producer credit; the studio; and Levinson.
They "lie," and yet, he says, they have responded to some of his protests, even though they won't address the issue of the story's veracity.
"The original script had (Sacred Heart) all over it," Nelan says. "We called Warner Bros. and that disappeared."
It's now the Church of the Holy Angels in the film.
But Nelan says that even as recently as 10 days ago, the Internet Web site for Sleepers showed a picture of his church. And it was a recent picture.
He complained again and it disappeared.
He also points out that the tale had been touted as "a true story" when the book came out, but now the movie is calling it "the controversial best seller" - the word "true" having been removed.
But even that is not enough. "We are not happy," Nelan says. "I would appreciate it if he (Carcaterra) would say it's just not true."
Carcaterra has always said that, except for identifying the actual Catholic school, he changed names and precise dates. He has also admitted that some details were fictitious. But beyond that, he won't refute any charges against his story.
"What's he got to hide?" Donohue asks. He plans a national campaign in which he'll urge "tens of thousands" of Catholics to send postcards of protest to the filmmakers.
"If people enjoy (the movie) for entertainment value, that's fine," Donohue says.
"My only goal is that people know it's fiction, that people don't come out of the movie thinking that's how Catholic priests act."
Robert De Niro, who plays the priest, is trying to steer clear of the controversy. His publicist, Stan Rosenfield, says the actor didn't know "whether the story was true or not. He takes his roles based on the part and the story. He thought this was a very good part and a very good story."
And Levinson says whether the purported events actually occurred is irrelevant.
"There are issues in the book that are all true," he says. "Issues of the influence of neighborhood and friendship - the good and bad of those. All of those things are relevant and are, in fact, true.
"What happens in reform schools and what that can create, and how you can manipulate the judicial system - this was all in a story that I found fascinating."
When Donohue and two lawyers tried to find records confirming Carcaterra spent time at a reform school, or records of a murder trial like the one described in the book and movie, every lead came up empty.
Levinson, when confronted, says he's confused by the harsh criticism.
"I can't really debate this so-called controversy," he says. "They say they can't find the court record (of the murder trial), but that's a bogus comment. You can't find the record, because you don't know the names. But Carcaterra says you're not going to find the record, that he's changed everything - names, dates, places. So what would you look up?"
He said that while he was filming, someone called him to say the story never happened.
"I said, 'Give me an example.' They said, 'First of all, there's no such thing in a reform school as solitary or 'the hole.' " (In the movie and book, "the hole" is a dark, cave-like cell where the boys are put for days as punishment.)
Levinson asked the caller, "Even if it's not a real place, they can't put them under a staircase or some place? They said, 'No, never, absolutely not.' Then, in doing research for the film, I read many other cases of abuse in reform schools that read, 'We were put in the hole, they put us in the hole.' It's well-documented."
As to the objection to De Niro's character, who lies under oath in a courtroom to save two of his former boys - now men - from a murder conviction, Levinson says the moment presents an important moral ambiguity:
"What we show is an incredible, compassionate priest, a wonderful person who does so much for the community on so many levels. You don't have to agree with the decision he makes, but I think you can understand how he arrives at it."
Levinson spoke with Carcaterra when he first read the book, and the two met on and off during the filming. "He's been very supportive," Levinson says.
Levinson initially read the book on vacation. "I got really excited about it. I was like, 'Oh yeah!' In fact, I couldn't wait and started writing (the screenplay) immediately. I wrote it before we could actually make a deal, which either shows you how slow lawyers are or how fast I write."
He completed the screenplay in three weeks.
He says Carcaterra likes the finished product and was emotionally overcome when he first saw it. "He couldn't talk and he left. Just went off for, like, an hour."
Levinson points to a scene in the film that, in his mind, reflects the irony of the controversy over Carcaterra's story.
"One of the kids says, 'We're never going to talk about this again because of the shame of it.' And another one says, 'Anyway, even if we did, people either wouldn't believe us, or they wouldn't give a s- - -.' "
Levinson smiles.
"It's interesting that (Carcaterra) finally writes about his experience, and people say they don't believe it."
Movie Review
By Mike Clark
Because Hollywood puts its own fictional veneer on fact-based stories as a matter of course, filmgoers won't have to fret over whether Barry Levinson's imposingly crafted adaptation of Sleepers (*** out of four) is fact, fiction or embellishment. Screen epics with 2 1/2-hour running times are made or broken on storytelling gusto, and Sleepers engrosses if it doesn't fully convince (even on its own terms).
Opening in New York City's tight Hell's Kitchen's neighborhood during a skillfully evoked 1966, the story deals with the sexual abuse and permanent warping of four young juvenile offenders by a band of reform school guards out of Midnight Express. The scenes are horrific, if mercifully inexplicit, and set the movie up for a second-half showdown that some viewers will buy more than others. When two members of the now-adult foursome fatally blast their chief abuser in a tense restaurant scene, a third buddy (Brad Pitt) hatches a brazen courtroom scheme with several co-conspirators to rig the outcome of their trial.
Sleepers is an ensemble acting treat with equally weighted performances, though Robert De Niro projects an especially heartfelt mix of sensitivity and street-toughness as a loyal priest forced into a queasy moral dilemma. Also in sync are Minnie Driver as the group's collective girlfriend, Dustin Hoffman as their boozy defense lawyer and - crucially - the four child actors charged with carrying the opening hour. Even Jason Patric's standard somnambulismbefits a character who, like his three adult buddies, has been rendered hollow.
Many readers had a tough time accepting that Pitt's green lawyer would be allowed to prosecute the case. The movie doesn't make this any more credible, and it's a major flaw. (R: sexual abuse, profanity, nudity)
----------------------------------------------------The New York Times----------------------------------------------
Artificiality Vanquishes An Authenticity Issue
BY JANET MASLIN
These days, Lorenzo Carcaterra's book "Sleepers" is known simply as "the controversial best seller." That's a shorthand way of saying that when this tidily plotted New York story was published as a non-fiction memoir last year, it sounded more Hollywood than Hell's Kitchen and prompted instant skepticism about the author's conveniently cinematic vision.
It's possible that this is a candid account of Mr. Carcaterra's boyhood adventures. It's also possible that Santa and the elves spend all year at the North Pole making a list and checking it twice. (WEBMASTER'S NOTE: Since Santa does exist, I guess Ms. Maslin is saying that Sleepers is a true story.)
Now, in what amounts to a self-fulfilling prophecy, "Sleepers" has become a big Hollywood movie with a slick, shrewd manner that perfectly mirrors Mr. Carcaterra's writing style. As directed by Barry Levinson and acted by an incredible collection of male stars, "Sleepers" settles the authenticity question by allowing not a whiff of real life into its universe.
Mr. Levinson, so admired for the raffish human comedy of "Diner" and "Tin Men," once again works the perfectly artificial style of his recent "Disclosure." And once again, its redeeming virtues are a fancy gloss and so much curiosity value that it's as if the circus had come to town.
"This is a story about friendships that run deeper than blood," Mr. Carcaterra insists at the start of "Sleepers." He proceeds to tell how he, Michael, John and Tommy, four picture-perfect scalawags from Central Casting, spent their Hell's Kitchen boyhood dealing with a colorful array of local characters. Father figures are everywhere: Father Bobby the street-wise priest played with fine winking beatitude by Robert De Niro; Lorenzo's hot-tempered real father (Bruno Kirby); and the debonair local Don, called King Benny (the elegant Vittorio Gassman, giving the film some gravity and class). In a story like this, the Don is sure to be seen peacefully feeding the pigeons, saying, "I like anything that don't talk."
Growing up in the 1960's (Mr. Levinson lays on a distracting Top-40 soundtrack to provide signs of the times), the boys inevitably pick up some bravado of their own. It lands them in trouble after a prank involving a hot dog vendor turns gristly and sends the boys to reform school. At the Wilkinson Home for Boys, these accidental delinquents fall under the sadistic hand of a guard named Sean Nokes, played coolly by Kevin Bacon. Beyond providing the film with one of its best performances, Mr. Bacon's appearance--in a film cast with stellar actors of the past, present, and future--should keep the game Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon current through the year 2010.
At the Wilkinson Home, where a bad prisoner of course knocks over one boy's meal tray in the cafeteria, the film's four young heroes are sexually abused by Nokes and three other guards. This of course takes place beneath a bare, swinging light bulb and contrasts brutally with the boys' cherished image of home (a fire hydrant spraying water in a slow, photogenic stream). It also creates a yen for revenge that is satisfied years later, when John and Tommy are grown-up hoods (Ron Eldard and Billy Crudup) who encounter the now-dissolute Nokes in a Hell's Kitchen bar. Mr. Crudup's performance in this one scene is enough to mark him as a matinee idol of the future.
Speaking of matinee idols, enter Brad Pitt. He is the grown-up Michael, now an assistant district attorney. Encouraged by Lorenzo (Jason Patric), now honing his skill for non-fiction writing as a newspaper reporter, Michael becomes involved in a daring scheme. What if he were to prosecute John and Tommy for killing Nokes and do his best to lose?
And what if he were helped in this film's courtroom scenes by its two heaviest hitters, Mr. De Niro, and Dustin Hoffman? Mr. De Niro keeps Father Bobby concerned and credible even after the camera reveals a copy of "The Gulag Archipelago" on his home bookshelf. And Mr. Hoffman, appearing only briefly as a barfly lawyer named Danny Snyder (the book called him Danny O'Connor), gives a slyly minimal performance and steals every scene he's in.
Mr. Pitt, with a heavy New York accent and more Method mannerisms than the film's businesslike style can really support (there's a lot of pained, thoughtful cigarette smoking), makes an attention-getting prosecutor if not a persuasive one. He provides some welcome energy as the film moves suspenselessly toward its easy, fundamentally cynical ending.
By a series of remarkable coincidences that are described in an epilogue (after the principals playfully sing together, à la "The First Wives Club"), neither Michael nor anyone else involved in "Sleepers" was available to help Mr. Carcaterra or Mr. Levinson (who wrote the screenplay) tell this tale. However, the film does benefit immensely from the handsome, substantial look of Michael Ballhaus's cinematography and from Kristi Zea's lively and nostalgic production design. If the film's West Side of Manhattan looks surprisingly serene, that's because it's in Brooklyn.
Also deserving mention in the large cast of "Sleepers": Terry Kinney as the Wilkinson guard who has a big courtroom scene; Wendell Pierce as the knowing black mobster who helps advance the revenge scheme; Aida Turturro as a witness to the crime; Joe Perrino and Geoff Wigdor as the liveliest of the film's young boys, and Brad Renfro as the most photogenic. (He grows up to be Brad Pitt.) Minnie Driver has the film's biggest whopper of a role, as the only available woman in Hell's Kitchen.
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A Film Review by James Berardinelli
RATING: 3.5 stars out of 4
United States, 1996
U.S. Release Date: 10/18/96 (wide)
Running Length: 2:32
MPAA Classification: R (Violence, rape, mature themes, profanity,
brief nudity)
Theatrical Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Cast: Jason Patric, Brad Pitt, Ron Eldard, Billy Crudup,
Robert DeNiro, Joseph Perrino, Brad Renfro, Geoffrey Wigdor,
Jonathan Tucker, Kevin Bacon, Minnie Driver, Dustin Hoffman,
Bruno Kirby, Vittorio Gassman
Director: Barry Levinson
Producers: Barry Levinson and Steve Golin
Screenplay: Barry Levinson based on the novel by Lorenzo
Carcaterra
Cinematography: Michael Ballhaus
Music: John Williams
U.S. Distributor: Warner Brothers
Robert DeNiro. Dustin Hoffman. Brad Pitt. Jason Patric. Kevin Bacon. Minnie Driver. With a talented cast like this, it's virtually impossible to envision a bad movie, and, in that regard, Sleepers doesn't surprise or disappoint. This is easily Barry Levinson's best effort of the decade, and it helps to erase the bad taste left by his early-'90s mega-flops Toys and Jimmy Hollywood. Despite protests from the Catholic Church (which whines about any movie that portrays priests as anything less-than-pure), Sleepers, which represents two and one- half hours of gripping entertainment, is well worth the price of admission.
The movie is about revenge and redemption, and how, in America's darkest social corridors and backalleys, the two can be inextricably linked. It's also a condemnation of a criminal justice system that allows innocence to be callously destroyed. Yet, even though Sleepers is basically a vigilante motion picture, it exists on a much higher plane than something like Death Wish, which offers a least common denominator, visceral satisfaction. There's little thrill in watching the vengeance extracted by the protagonists of this film because Sleepers approaches its subject with a conscience. The movie's moral compass is Robert DeNiro's Father Bobby, a Catholic priest who recognizes that friendship and loyalty can require sacrifices of the soul, but who doesn't tread lightly across the line separating what's legally correct from what's ethically mandated.
In fact, Father Bobby's dilemma is arguably the most compelling aspect of Sleepers' second half. The film's sluggish final hour is its weakest portion, but there's still enough there to maintain audience interest. We've spent a long time with these characters, and we're not about to abandon them because Levinson doesn't move things as smoothly to the climax as we might prefer.
Sleepers, which may or may not be based on a true story (the author of the novel, Lorenzo Carcaterra, isn't doing interviews these days), spans fifteen years. Much of the action transpires in New York's Hell's Kitchen, which stretches from 34th to 56th Street west of 8th Avenue to the Hudson River. During the film's era, the neighborhood was ruled by two vastly different powers: the mob (represented by gangster King Benny, played by Vittorio Gassman) and the Catholic Church (represented by Father Bobby). Every child learned to respect both, and live by a simple creed: never commit a crime against someone else in the neighborhood. Such offenses were not permitted; the people of Hell's Kitchen looked after one another.
The film opens in 1966 by introducing us to four inseparable friends: Lorenzo (Joseph Perrino), Michael (Brad Renfro), John (Geoffrey Wigdor), and Tommy (Jonathan Tucker). Like most boys, they're curious about sex, enjoy playing stickball, and have an appetite for pranks. One such practical joke, gone horribly wrong, changes their lives. When their theft of a hot dog vendor's cart nearly causes a man's death, Lorenzo and his friends are found guilty of reckless endangerment and sent to the Wilkinson Reform School. There, under the watchful eye of a sadistic guard named Sean Nokes (Kevin Bacon), they are subjected to mental, physical, and sexual abuse.
Although their sentences are only for a year, those twelve months fundamentally alter their personalities. When we next meet them, in 1981, their lives have moved on, but the submerged hatred lingers. Lorenzo (now played by Jason Patric) is an aspiring reporter working for the New York Daily News. Michael (Brad Pitt) is an attorney in the D.A.'s office. John (Ron Eldard) and Tommy (Billy Crudup) are hardened criminals. All four are forced to confront their shared past when John and Tommy encounter Nokes in a restaurant. Their actions provide the catalyst for a plan that Michael devises to bring the entire Wilkinson experience into the open. So, with the help of Lorenzo; John's lover, Carol (Minnie Driver); and a burned-out lawyer (Dustin Hoffman), Michael strives to attain redemption and revenge for them all.
Sleepers' provocative script is marred only by an unnecessarily verbose voiceover narrative and the protracted final third. One of the most fascinating aspects of the movie is watching how the law can be manipulated to deliver justice in a manner that was never intended. And, while Michael's scheme may be a little too convoluted to be plausible, it's nevertheless entertaining to watch the pieces fall into place.
Then there's Father Bobby's dilemma, which, in some ways, echoes the one agonized over by the protagonist of Antonia Bird's Priest. At what point do the demands of basic humanity take precedence over the oaths and responsibilities of the Cloth? Much of this struggle is not played out in words, but in Bobby's face, and, with an actor of lesser ability than DeNiro, the emotional resonance of the internal war could have been lost.
DeNiro isn't the only one to turn in a powerful performance. Sleepers is as well-acted as it is deftly-crafted. There are those who may be disconcerted by the intensity of the reform school scenes (nothing overly graphic is shown, but much is implied). Levinson takes us through every phase of the boys' torture so that, when the time comes, we can understand and sympathize with their need to emulate the hero of their favorite book, The Count of Monte Cristo, and exact decisive retribution.
As Sleepers opens in theaters, members of the media are trying to determine how much of this film is grounded in reality. Ultimately, however, it doesn't make much difference whether the events of Sleepers happened or not. The themes and messages are no less valid either way, and, even if it isn't a true story, events like these could have transpired. Fact or fiction, this is a memorable motion picture.
© 1996 James Berardinelli
-- James Berardinelli
e-mail: berardin@bc.cybernex.net
web page: http://www.cybernex.net/~berardin
------------------------------------------------------24 FRAMES PER SECOND----------------------------------------
Barry Levinson's latest film
Sleepers, follows the lives of four best friend boys into and out
of a sexually abusive reform school and through their adult
attempts to seek revenge upon those deserving. With its scenes of
Hell's Kitchen's youthful street and church life, the films
opening hour passes enjoyably while solidly establishing the
characters. "Sleepers" is consistently well acted (with
Dustin Hoffman's alcoholic lawyer, a highlight) and is shot
beautifully by Michael Ballhaus (with energized, swooping cranes
and tracking shots, and with the addition of the voice-over and
structure, the first act seems lifted right from the
cinematographer's Goodfellas). Sleepers was first a controversial
book, argued as to whether or not it was (as the author
contended) a true story. Having not read it, and caring less if
it is true, the issue of its veracity comes to mind only because
the film, in its final court room laden hour, falls into the
gutter of inconceivability and predictability [the question of
whether Father Bobby (DeNiro) will lie under oath is never a
question-- the narrative demands it]. The revenge plot schemed up
by one of the friends (Brad Pitt, now an assistant district
attorney) requires that all government, judicial and press
members within a knowing radius be or act oblivious and stupid.
The films point of view is obvious: the brutal, horrific
year-long acts of violence and rape afflicted upon these boys
justify the murders and ethical tramplings that revenge brings. I
suppose it is difficult to argue, but it certainly leaves those
exiting the theater feeling the need to go home and shower to
wash off the slime.
Text by Kirk Hostetter
-------------------------------------------------E! ONLINE REVIEW----------------------------------------------
Sleepers
A -
The dialogue crackles, the direction is sure-handed, the
performances sparkle--especially a terrific comic turn by Hoffman
that stands out from the ensemble smorgasbord. Based on the
bestselling memoir by Lorenzo Carcaterra, the movie is a
Dickensian tale of revenge and retribution, cruelty and loyalty,
fate and faith. Intense and gripping, Sleepers keeps you wide
awake right to the end. Who'd have thought that movies like
Diner, Tin Men and Rain Man were just warm-ups for
writer-director Levinson?
-----------------------------------------------HBO MOVIE REVIEW ---------------------------------------------
SLEEPERS (Warner Bros.) would have
certainly been leaner and meaner had it been directed by Martin
Scorsese. As is, the softer, nostalgic style of Barry Levinson,
hardly a master of the mean streets, lessens the impact, mutes
the horror. Still, this mostly engrossing tale of bitterness and
sweet revenge sports one of the year's most impressive casts. It
brings to mind those old Humphrey Bogart (or James Cagney or Pat
O'Brien) movies from the '30s where the hero grew up to be a
priest (or a district attorney) and his best childhood friend
from the projects grew up to be a gangster (or a dirty
policeman). Michael, Tommy, John and Shakes are Hell's Kitchen
buddies who get into a heap of trouble when a stupid prank,
involving a hot dog vendor's cart, goes sour, and an innocent
bystander almost dies. The kids are sent to a juvenile home,
where they are beaten and abused by the cretinous guards. Years
later, Shakes is a newspaperman, Michael is a lawyer, and the
other two have turned into adult hoods who will be lucky to
celebrate their thirtieth birthdays. The old gang teams up one
last time to exorcise their collective demons by getting back at
those who hurt them. Jason Patric, Kevin Bacon, Vittorio Gassman,
Minnie Driver, Brad Pitt, Robert DeNiro and Dustin Hoffman
certainly give good marquee, though Levinson lets the melodrama
go on too long. SLEEPERS is based on the recent best-seller by
Lorenzo Carcaterra that had critics divided (fiction or non?)
when it was published in 1995. See for yourself.
--Jim Byerley
----------------------------------SYRACUSE NEW TIMES FILM REVIEW-------------------------------
Film Review
Sleepers. (Warner Bros.; 146 minutes; R). The title of author
Lorenzo Carcaterra's allegedly autobiographical novel refers to
the delinquent boys who spent time in a juvenile facility, which
screen adapter and director Barry Levinson reveals as a literal
house of horrors. The first hour deals with a quartet of Hell's
Kitchen teens who in 1967 inadvertently cause a subway accident
while stealing from a hot-dog vendor; they're sent upstate to a
reform school for a yearlong stretch, whereupon the foursome are
repeatedly abused by a vicious guard (Kevin Bacon as the movie
year's best sleazeball) and his gang of sexual deviates. The
balance of the film is set in 1981, as two of the now-adult kids
(Billy Crudup and ER's Ron Eldard) pay violent retribution to
their former guard, while the quartet's remaining members--an
assistant district attorney (Brad Pitt) and an aspiring
journalist (Jason Patric)--attempt an elaborate courtroom scam to
free their buddies.
Take away Sleepers' gamier aspects and you've got a reprise of
those Warner Bros. sociological programmers from the Thirties,
the ones with Billy Halop, Leo Gorcey and the Dead End Kids
learning about rehabilitation from Pat O'Brien's kindly priest.
Sleepers barely updates the formula, as Robert De Niro plays a
taciturn man of the cloth and two of the kiddie quartet end up as
coldblooded bad guys, owing to their inability to cope with their
multiple sexual violations. Even so, the first 60 minutes makes
for compelling, if exploitive, cinema: The adolescents remarkably
convey their characters' shredded strands of innocence,
especially Joe Perrino as the young Carcaterra and Brad Renfro
(The Client) as the charismatic leader who initiates the fated
wiener rip-off. And while Levinson's dreamy evocation of the
Sixties Manhattan mean streets may be about as realistic as his
baseball fantasy conception of The Natural, it does allow for
some Kitchen-sink violence to come crashing through, such as
Carcaterra's pop (Bruno Kirby) regularly beating his spouse.
On the other hand, the final 86 minutes can be a trial to sit
through, as unlikely plot developments (Pitt's ADA attempts to
jury-rig both the prosecution and defense through a soused
shyster (Dustin Hoffman) the mob has hired to
"represent" the killers) and preposterous revelations
(one guard tearfully breaks down on the stand) continually poke
through Levinson's slick melodrama. Pitt and Patric's
performances also suffer to a degree: Although their characters
are supposed to be shell-shocked souls haunted by their past, the
actors' muzzled turns don't exactly aid Sleepers' unbelievable
legal maneuvers. Nevertheless, Levinson garners impressive work
from De Niro, Hoffman (his courtroom stumble gets a big audience
laugh), Minnie Driver as the boys' longtime gal pal and Vittorio
Gassman as a grinning mobster. If nothing else, the all-star cast
that distinguishes Sleepers will make it a lot easier to play
that "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" trivia game.
-----------------------------------------------TEEN MOVIE CRITIC---------------------------------------------
Sleepers (1996)
Despite the fact that this is one
of the most brutal films since Seven, it is also one of the best
movies of 1996. Based on the controversial best seller by Lorenzo
Carcaterra (and supposedly based on a true story), the movie
follows the lives of four friends through two stages of their
time together. The first part deals with their time as children
at Hell's Kitchen in the 1960's, imparting the expected
assortment of childhood pranks. One day, one of their practical
jokes goes awry, when they nearly kill a man. Because of this
incident, they are sent to a brutal reform school which changes
their world forever. Flash forward to 1981! Two of the childhood
chums grow up to be big time criminals. They meet up with the
guard (Kevin Bacon) who applied brutal torture to them while they
were in the reform school. They take out their revenge on Bacon
in their typical cold blooded fashion.
Now they are on trial, and the third member of the gang (Brad
Pitt) is the prosecutor. However, Pitt has taken the case,
because it's all part of a plan for him to lose the case, get his
buddies off and condemn the guards that tortured him and the
school in which it happened. Helping him out on this interesting
crusade is the remaining member and narrator of the story (Jason
Patric) and a fatherly priest (Robert De Niro), who will do
anything to help out his friends. Even commit perjury! (This part
of the story-fabrication is what garnered the most outrage from
the Catholic church)!! A truly compelling story with an
outstanding cast. Kudos go to De Niro. And Dustin Hoffman as the
defendants' alcoholic lawyer is magnificent. They are both quite
excellent (I do not hesitate to add as always) and Pitt, Patric
and Bacon hold up impressively well next to them. The two great
things about this is: a)None of the actors attempt to upstage
each other. Hoffman, Pitt and De Niro (always known for their
scene-stealing roles) are quite restrained and courteous of the
other actors around them. b)The film avoids cliches. This does
not resort to the typical prison-courtroom dramatics. The
screenwriting is brilliantly fresh and original. Those things
alone are worth going to see this for. I think I should also not
neglect to mention the great cinematography and the crisp editing
job, as well as the great directorial work by Barry Levinson
(Rain Man). I'd have to say that this is the best of the fall
season...so far.
My Rating = 4 out of 4 stars
