Movies-TV

Brad Renfro Shines

I first watched this movie when I was 12 and it was so powerful and gripping that the images stayed with me for months and months before I viewed it again. I at the time was in love with Brad Pitt so I got this movie, and I had no idea what it was about. It was horrific, scary, and yet I loved the movie. It is one of my favorites. It was a dream cast and they all did excellent. However, the young boys stole the show from all of the others. Geoff Wigdor, Joe Perrino, Jonathon Tucker and the late but greatly missed Brad Renfro conveyed the innocence of youth and excellently portrayed that innocence being lost. Kevin Bacon was chilling as always and did a marvelous job as Nokes. Jason Patric, Brad Pitt, Billy Crudup, and Ron Eldard were good, but did not come to par with the performance of the actors playing their younger selves. DeNiro was fantastic, playing Father Bobby as only he can. My favorite scene was when the boys were sitting around the table and were talking about what they wanted when the left Wilkonsin. "The truth stays with us"...uh, Brad Renfro was amazing. The movie made me track down the book and that has become my favorite book of all time. This movie shows not only the horrors of child abuse but the power of friendship. Watch it!!!!!!!

Entertaining well made film about a difficult subject

This film deals with a topic that continually arises in our culture, the sexual molestation of children by adults in authority positions. In some ways the film compliments the more contemporary film "Mysterious Skin" which deals with a similar theme. I will first discuss an overall assessment of the film and then return to the theme of sexual molestation and the long path to recovery from sexual molestation.

As a dramatic engaging film, this product is very good. The acting of Robert DeNero, Kevin Bacon, Jason Patric, Minnie Driver, Billy Crudup, Brad Pitt, and Dustin Hoffman is super. DeNero is wonderful as the priest put in an ethical dilemna. Jason Patric holds the second half of the film together as the most psychologically sound of the victims. Kevin Bacon is creepy and realistic as the sadistic molester. Dustin Hoffman is a rare talent as he plays an incompetent alcoholic drug addicted second rate lawyer. Also note that the child actors were very good also. The plot is well developed and engaging, especially the division of the film into childhood and adulthood experiences. The Count of Monte Cristo by Dumas is also used as a unifying theme of imprisonment, escape, planned revenge, and redemption from pain. The cinematography was very good (notice the camera angels and techniques used on the city streets, the courtroom, and especially in the youth facility) and sound track (with serious almost tragic overtones) are first rate. Overall the film gets 5 out of 5 points.

The theme of sexual molestation of children by adults is a difficult and disturbing topic. In this film, 4 boys are molested, with two emerging as angry killers and two emerging with intact emotional stability. Brad Pitt plays the young lawyer who uses the court room to unearth the sexual crimes committed by several guards in the correctional facility. Jason Patric however plays the victim with the the strongest emotional stability and who is capable of developing loving relationships and moving forward with his life. Revenge was the theme that holds the second half of the film together, carefully plotted and executed by two of the victims, impulsively and self defeating by the other two.


A fine film worthy of your time.

true to my childhood

this picture reminded me of the poor neighborhood I grew up in the catholic parish, the good priest's doing everything they could to help their parishoners the close bonds that were formed within the neighborhood and school friendships that lasted many years some turned out to be doctors,attorneys, a couple of priests one bishop a county commissioner owner of a NFL team and then the ones that went to prison one shot and killed fleeing the state police in alabama this picture brought back so many of my personal experiences in this poor neighborhood this experience started for me in 1926 I thought the picture was so true to life at least for me.

If you can't do the time---don't do the crime

Sleepers was a very powerful movie---Kevin Bacon gives a breakout performance as sadistic guard Sean Nokes. I liked the first half of the film better; thinking about the horrors that the 4 boys had to have endured can keep you awake at night. Brad Renfro and Geoff Wigdor get high fives too; they had the New York accents down cold.

I've seen many films, some were great, some were awful, and this surpasses all of them

The words, as well as the acting and story line are incredibly poignant. Geoffery Wigdor, as young John Reilly, shines through as a very talented and strong actor, particularly for someone of his age. However, the fact that a certain character has left an unimaginable imprint on me, is not meant to belittle the rest of the cast. Sleepers, has 12 of the best, most powerful (not to mention most attractive) cast members, in the history of moving pictures. Not only do I recommend showing this movie to friends and family, I also recommend purchasing the book. Thank you, and enjoy the feature presentation!!!!!!!

Good intentions, evil effects

We have to move from the obvious center of the story, a group of young kids who became adults in very difficult circumstances : those of Hell's Kitchen in New York, to the priest who is a permanent reference all along. He wants to bring those kids to some kind of salvation that could mean priesthood for some of them. He fails, and it is his being too lenient that causes the drama of their life : their imprisonment in a very special Boys' educational detention center. But two of the boys will turn criminal and kill one night one of the ex-wardens in whose hands they had suffered hell and blazes. The priest will save them from due punishment and his lie, in the name of the necessary correction of the evil performed in this detention center, will push the two young men into more crimes and a violent death. The dilemma of the priest between improving the world and saving the souls of young people is set wrong from the very start : souls can only be saved with love and strict rules set by God himself, not with permissiveness : the latter has a tendency to reproduce evil more than to correct it and hence to save souls.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

Interesting

This was a pretty interesting movie with outstanding performances and great direction. I'm not going to get into the plot because the plot is kind of complicated and I don't want to spoil anything.3(***)out of 4(****)stars

Snoozers?

Any movie that has the Catholic church frothing at the mouth can't be all bad. In the case of Sleepers, the lodged complaint circles not around the brutal treatment of four boys at the center of the film, but the perjury-laced testimony of the priest (played by Robert DeNiro) who tries to protect them.

The authenticity of Lorenzo Carcaterra's bestseller has continued to be a question, but the compelling nature of the story--true or not--is undeniable. The wise guy buddies grow up fast in Hell's Kitchen in the '60s. They do the altar boy thing one minute and peer at naked ice capade dancers through a broken window the next. It's like an Angel's with Dirty Faces remake without Cagney or an electric chair.

The rough center of the story comes in the shadowy form of Wilkinson, a dank reform school where the spirits of the precocious teens are crushed on a relentless wheel of physical and verbal abuse. The leader of the pack is a sicko guard named Nokes (Kevin Bacon). The kids do their time and twelve years later two of them grease Nokes in a restaurant. Michael (Brad Pitt), an assistant D.A., and Lorenzo (Jason Patric), a reporter, conspire to get their buds off the hook in an eye for an eye trade-off.

They cash in all their favors, throw an alcoholic lawyer played by Dustin Hoffman on the other side of the case, and wreak revenge on their past.

But despite the star-studded lineup, Sleepers doesn't pack quite the emotional wallop it could have. The devastating prologue makes anything after it meager and shallow.

The past comes back

This is an outstanding movie based on a true story
even though the city of new york denies this ever happened.
You will not regret viewing this movie, it is a keeper....
I have viewed it atleast 4 times, and I still get my
emotions going big time.

If it had a 10 star rating I would give it that.....

Difficult to watch...

This movie was well acted and directed. Difficult in places due to the content, not the performances. I enjoyed the end of the movie immensely in that it has well done closure and I just think this movie was under marketed.Minor S * P * O * I * L * E * RThe acts of revenge in this movie are well-portrayed and smart, not just spit out and splashed on the screen. The essence of true effective pay back.I give it 9/10 pts. thank you.

Powerful

This is a very dramatic and gripping film. The cast is great for the movie, though Brad Pitt is underused, and Dustin Hoffman may seem miscast. But overall a very good and extremely underrated movie.

Sleepers

Very well put movie . Made me want to cry for the 4 boys and what happened to them in that wilkinson home for boys . As much as I love Kevin Bacon this movie sure made me want to hate him for what he did to the boys . Brad Pitt was brilliant in how he got back at all the guards for what they had done . This is a 5 STAR movie if I ever saw one .

Cruelty, etc.

This film was not all that great, but it was still good. It was about these four friends that were sent to a school for boys when they almost killed a man with a hot dog stand. Yhen, when they are older they want to kill the man from the boys' home (school) because of his molestations to them.

Very well made sentimental drivel that's rotten at its core

Sleepers poses a hell of a problem. It is extremely well made, calls on the services of great actors such as Brad Pitt, Robert De Niro, Dustin Hoffman, Vittorio Gassman, Jason Patric, plus many more who are not as well-known, beautifully shot and extremely evocative. Yet at its heart it is rotten, quite rotten. It is that nastiest of all nasties, evil masquerading as good. Forget the sentimental drivel about how four friends hold together through thick and thin, about loyalty, about the how love and friendship are the highest value: this film seriously suggests that there are some circumstances under which is it fine to murder in cold blood, fine to perjure yourself and fine to lie, cheat, blackmail, bribe, threaten and intimidate. Those of you who have already seen this film, think back. Ignore, for a moment, the sentimental floss and ask yourself what was portrayed here: two out and out ruthless killers get away with murder with the connivance of what is to all intents and purposes a bent DA and it is all shown to be OK. Really? The film suggests it is OK because the main victim as well as another were homosexual paedophiles. Really? So there is a pecking order in nasty, vicious crimes? The main and most controversial pivot of the plot is that a Roman Catholic priest is prepared to swear to tell the truth on the Bible and then tell an enormous lie for the sake of the two killers. There have been many RC priests, I'm sure, who have done just that and given the sexual abuse scandals of these past twenty years, and the despicable cover-up by the church authorities, there are many homosexual paedophiles who happen to be RC priests. But in the real world no one is pretending that they are anything but despicable themselves. That is the evil core of this film. Of course, at the end of the day Sleepers is nothing but another Saturday night movie, a throwaway piece to pass a few hours. Yet there will undoubtedly be many young people who watch this who will come away with the impression that, yes, under some circumstances it it OK to murder in cold blood (or, more pertinently, OK to torture in cold blood as happened at Guantanamo and elsewhere at the behest of the CIA). Do we really want that? Do we really want to have our young thinking that evil is good under some circumstances? Apart from the ethical angle to criticisms of this film, there are several plot holes which make it rather less good a film than it might at first appear. Surely the police would have ascertained the two accused possible alibi before the case was brought to court? Surely there would have been many questions as to why the priest comes forward with such a crucial alibi so late in the day? Surely the DA previous friendship and past with the two accused would have come to light quite quickly and would most certainly have come to light after the case ends? The story behind Sleepers raises some interesting questions but as all too often Hollywood goes for the schmoozefest as typified by the final reunion and celebration scene rather than get its hands dirty and make an intelligent, challenging film. This version, the sentimental drivel version, undoubtedly made more money than a hypothetical intelligent versions would have done. But I know which I would have preferred. Don't waste a minute watching Sleepers.

The Complex not Delivered

Spoilers herein.Levinson's talent is fragile. Actors love him because he works for the scene and he often does produce memorable scenes. Some films can be composed of memorable scenes: `Rain Man,' `Tin Men,' even the parts of `Wag the Dog' that work. One would assume that he knows this, and that is why he is drawn to episodic work.But this story is different. It requires a vision greater than an actor's. It requires a framing greater than that of a scene. He doesn't have that greater vision and so this very promising material collapses. I'm sure it made matters worse, not better, to have some very talented, serious actors on board. Working with them would have reinforced his tendency to invest in the characters, the role, the dialog, the scene, and ignore the drama; the undercurrent that is carried from one scene to the next; the projection of emotion the audience can carry; the rare but effective moments when the audience becomes co-conspirator; the evocation of memory without showing that memory.So I consider this to be an interesting, illustrative failure, especially considering what happened next. Levinson, DeNiro and Hoffman seriously believe that the actor is the core of all film effectiveness. (This film proves they are wrong, but set that aside.) They hate it when a writer, `art' director, even a producer lobbies for a higher vision. They hate it -- here (they believe) they are at the beginning of the food chain in terms of creativity but the bottom in terms of power.So they collaboratively put together the project `Wag the Dog,' which revolves around the power of the presenter to create the truth, the real truth. There, they put the artist in charge of the whole country.Making a film is a balance of power. The director must control that power, sometimes submerging the actors to higher forms of communication and interaction with the audience. Levinson doesn't want that power; the actors should be good enough. Not for this material. No.

Sleepers is an excellent, haunting tale

Rare is a movie that completely holds your attention for 2 1/2 hours but Sleepers is that movie. Played out by an exceptional ensemble cast (Brad Pitt, Jason Patric, Dustin Hoffman, Brad Renfro), it tells the tale of four young Hell's Kitchen boys who after pulling a seamingly harmless prank, are sent to a juvenile facility where they face unspeakable horrors at the hands of ther wardens. This trauma follows 2 of the boys into adulthood where they enter a life of crime. When they take their revenge on a particularly sadistic guard, it's up to the other boys, along with a childhood gal pal and a loving priest to save them. Every performance in this movie makes an indelible impression but the standouts are Deniro as Father Bobby, Frank Medrano as neighborhhod shopowner Fatman, Minnie Driver as Carol and Geoffrey Wigdor as young John. I watch this movie every November(it feels like a Fall time movie) and it never fails to amaze me. It is tense, heartwrenching, touching and at times funny. However the final 5 minutes always hit me where it hurts. When I think of how those kids were robbed of a normal life it sickens me. Sleepers is a phenomenal film that will leave a deep impression.

classic example...

This movie is a classic example that inspite of excellent casts, without good direction and plot the movie will still not get very far. This movie is good. But given the amount of talents avaliable, I would expect better. I mean come on, we got an all star casts here!!! Dustin, Pitt, Bobby, Kevin..whats more do you want? But somehow, there was no chance for them to reach their optimal performance in the script. Movie is good, 6.8/10 but with the casts I would expect 9/10.

A terrible waste of time.

Hardly convincing tale of revenge that was based on the book by Lorenzo Carcaterra of how two childhood friends, one is a district attorney (Brad Pitt) and the other (Jason Patric) who works at the New York Post when they decide help two others childhood pals of theirs (Ron Eldard and Billy Crudup), now hoodlums who are accused of savagely shooting a former guard (Kevin Bacon), who had tortured the trio several years ago at a boys' home.I had the misfortune of watching this movie as a sophomore in high school and how it irritated (and absolutely offended) me hasn't left my mind. The scenes at the boys' home weren't only difficult to watch, but pain-staking especially what happened at night.If there's one bright spot that manages to rise above the mess of a badly organized movie, it's the performances given by Patric, Robert De Niro, Minnie Driver, and the late Vittorio Gassman that make the film somewhat watch-able.What "Sleepers" resembles here isn't only a waste of great cast and director Barry Levinson, but simply a terrible waste of time.For anyone who was insulted by this movie's weak attempt as a revenge part dramatic thriller, try "In the Name of the Father", "The Shawshank Redemption", or "Escape from Alcatraz".

Very happy

I was very happy with my purchase of this DVD and the timeliness of its delivery.

Reckless Endangerment

The script explains "Sleepers" as, "the street name for anyone who spent time in a juvenile facility." This portends young children are physically abused in "reform schools", leading to permanent psychological problems throughout life. So, "Sleepers" are physically and sexually abused young children. Those afflicted, herein at the "Wilkinson Home for Boys", are four childhood friends, from New York's "Hell's Kitchen": Joe Perrino and Jason Patric (as Lorenzo "Shakes" Carcaterra), Brad Renfro and Brad Pitt (as Michael Sullivan), Jonathan Tucker and Billy Crudup (as Thomas Marcano), and Geoffrey Wigdor and Ron Eldard (as John Reilly). The eight actors are well-cast; and, their work is extraordinary. Mr. Perrino essays, arguably, the octet's greatest performance; the film is centered around his stinging, sensitive characterization.Unfortunately, the story unravels, during the second half of the film. A serious topic is bowdlerized by an increasingly implausible set of circumstances. Without giving anything away (after all, this is still a great film), note that social worker Minnie Driver (as Carol Martinez) sums up the film's ideological shortcomings with the line, "What is this, a gay bar?" The line, and the actors' lack of traumatized reaction, helps separate being "gay" from the sadistic homosexual pedophile portrayed by Kevin Bacon (as Sean Nokes). For the clearest delineation of the "Sean Nokes" character, note Mr. Bacon's eyes as he watches Perrino undress. The subtle "homophobia", and "immoral" act committed by the killers' Priest (and "friend") Robert De Niro (as Father Bobby), will unsettle many viewers. Still, director Barry Levinson, and novelist Lorenzo Carcaterra, should be commended for shining light on topics too often regulated to the dark. The single "Academy Award" nomination, for John Williams' always excellent music, is shocking. The film contains at least five performances worthy of a "Best Supporting Actor" Oscar; perhaps, with so many in contention, it was easier to simply move on. In addition to those mentioned above, you have alcoholic lawyer Dustin Hoffman (as Danny Snyder), kindly mobster Vittorio Gassman (as King Benny), and Terry Kinney (as Ralph Ferguson). Mr. Kinney's witness stand meltdown is most amazing. Stu Linder's editing, Timothy Galvin's art direction, and Beth Rubino's set direction are also award worthy. It's hard to believe five films topped the Gavin/Rubino work on "Sleepers".Set in the late 1960s, the first part of "Sleepers" (forgiving the fact that the lads would not have been listening to Donovan's "Hurdy Gurdy Man" in 1967) is a fantastic film: ********** Sleepers (1996) Barry Levinson ~ Joseph Perrino, Brad Renfro, Jonathan Tucker, Geoffrey Wigdor Set in the early 1980s, the second part falters in storyline; but, it's still an excellent movie: ******** Sleepers (1996) Barry Levinson ~ Jason Patric, Brad Pitt, Robert De Niro, Dustin HoffmanAveraging out to a still well above average: ********* Sleepers (1996) Barry Levinson ~ Joseph Perrino, Jason Patric, Kevin Bacon, Brad Pitt