Absolutely the worst movie.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Director is trying to make a Scorsese movie, but he fails. Fails terribly.

Barry Levinson's Sleepers is a very good legal- crime dramatic feature film starring some great actors who get a change to truly shine through. The premise is that a group of 4 boys are sent to a detention center after committing a crime. Over there they are abused routinely until being let go. Deciding not to go vocal with their abuse, the boys go separate ways. Fast forward a decade and some and two of them kill one of the detention center guard after encountering him in a bar. They are convicted but with the help of the other two friends who are lawyers they are freed. The actors from Brad Pitt, Robert De Niro, Dustin Hoffman and Kevin bacon all give great performances in this Barry Levinson film.

Wow. This was a great movie.It was solid from start to finish. The characters were awesome, the plot twists were brilliant and the cast...well, it was a fantasy cast wasn't it? Kevin Bacon, Billy Crudup, Minnie Driver, Bruno Kirby, Jason Patric, Brad Renfro, Brad Pitt, Dustin Hoffman, and Robert De Niro...it's like they did a casting call with the best of the best. There are some serious actors in this movie.Not only that but if you play Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon...this film rocks. So many links.Anyway, the story is probably off-putting to some people. It's not exactly fun to watch even implied child molestation, but the pay off is there, especially when you get to the end of the film.I love movies with dense and twisting plots, especially when they are character driven and have the acting talent to back them up. Sleepers has all of that and more.It should make anyone's top-ten must see list.

I have a strong memory of first viewing Barry Levinson's film of Lorenzo Carcaterra's controversial novel, which the author insisted was autobiographical, despite detractors who have challenged his claim. Regardless, the story of four childhood friends who pull a foolish stunt that changes their lives forever, remains emotionally powerful for the most part, and certainly there's no denying that situations like have happened and will likely continue to happen. The film loses credibility in the second half, but the impression it leaves will stay with you.The story opens in the 1960s in New York's Hell's Kitchen, which is masterfully re-created. Neighborhood pals Shakes (Joe Perrino), Michael (the tragic Brad Renfro), John (Geoffrey Wigdor) and Tommy (Jonathan Tucker) grow up together in a world that is an odd mix of childhood innocence, religion and organized crime. Their ally is Father Robert "Bobby" Carillo (Robert De Niro, who else?) who tries to guide them and encourage them to see beyond Hell's Kitchen. An enjoyable oldies soundtrack adds to the spirit of the story until things change for the worse for the young protagonists. A prank goes terribly wrong, critically injuring an innocent bystander and the boys find themselves sentenced to do time at the Wilkinson's Home For Boys, a juvenile institution where dangerous offenders are housed. Shakes, Michael, John and Tommy find the grimness of the institution difficult, but that does little to prepare them for the nightmare they end up enduring at the hands of sadistic guards, lead by Sean Nokes (Kevin Bacon, in another villainous turn), and it's easy to despise him and the other guards (played by Terry Kinney, Jeffrey Donovan and Lenny Loftkin respectively) for their brutality towards these vulnerable adolescents. Sexual abuse is implied but not shown graphically, but the disturbing sounds of screaming and the broken looks on the faces of the boys more than gets the point across. I'm always somewhat surprised that many reviews overlook just how effective the child actors are, and how they essentially carry the first half of the film. They are all extremely natural, their rapport is believable, and they convey much more with facial expressions than any dialogue. Brad Renfro's performance is especially poignant in retrospect, not only due to his tragically early death but the strong likelihood that he was victimized himself in real life. It adds a more disturbing and touching aspect to the viewing experience.Fast forward to 1981, and John (now played by Ron Eldard) and Tommy (now portrayed by Billy Crudup, in his film debut) have become hardened criminals and one night they come across Sean Nokes by chance in a pub. They take this opportunity to exact revenge, and both Eldard and Crudup give powerhouse performances. Unfortunately, after that, they take a backseat until the film's conclusion. The same can be said for Minnie Driver, who plays the adult Carol Martinez, who was a companion to the young men in the past and still cares deeply for them. Michael (Brad Pitt in the adult role) and Shakes (Jason Patric, who also provides voice-over narration) are both portrayed by competent actors, but their performances are uneven; at times they seem emotionally invested and other times they just seem to be going through the motions. Michael is now a prosecutor and he uses the case as a way to get revenge in his own way, and to do his best to make sure that his friends are acquitted. But will he be able to pull it off? Robert De Niro remains the constant throughout as the priest who will do anything for his boys, while Dustin Hoffman as defense attorney Danny Snyder has little more than a cameo. Bruno Kirby and Vittorio Gassman give respectable supporting turns, but the film belongs to the child actors, De Niro and to a lesser extent Eldard and Crudup. In some ways, "Sleepers" suffers the same fate as similarly flashback-driven movies such as "Stephen King's It" (1990) and "Now And Then" (1995), where the adult actors aren't nearly as compelling as their child counterparts, despite the talent involved.The questions raised here are valid and worth examining. Surely the trauma of abuse, particularly sexual abuse is extremely damaging and soul-destroying, but is it ever acceptable to take the law into one's own hands? Is vigilante justice the answer or does violence simply beget more violence and bloodshed?True story or not, this is an issue that needs to be addressed on both counts.