Sleepers - 1996

It was sad, it was hard, because it was all about four kids being tortured by guards. For me this is one of (if not ‘the’) Brad Pitt’s best performances. I often don’t like him, but here I did, he played well the tormented soul of Michael. In this movie there are a lot of good, famous actors, and there is also Vittorio Gassman, a great Italian actor. I saw him once, he was a hard man but an amazing presence on stage. The story is about four boys being sent to a detention center after a sort of accident, a prank meant just for fun but that ruined their lives forever. For one year the four boys were tortured by the guards, they were regularly beaten, they were raped, they were threatened and scared in any way, they were put in isolation cells without having done anything wrong. They lived in terror, and even after they got out they could never go past it. Tommy (Billy Crudup) and John (Ron Eldard) grew up to become criminals and murderers. Shakes (Jason Patrick) is a journalist and Michael (Brad Pitt) works for the D.A. One day John and Tommy meet, totally by chance, Sean Nokes (Kevin Bacon) their main torturer. They are surprised, it all comes back to them. They go talk to him then shoot him several times in his leg, arm, shoulder, until the final shot to the head, then they calmly walk outside after paying for their drinks. No doubt they are arrested, and Michael asks for the case to be assigned to him. At first Shakes can’t believe Michael wants to put his old friends in jail for this, but then Michael explains his plan. He took the case to lose, not to win. His real, hidden intention is to expose what was really going on inside that center. They asked King Benny (Vittorio Gassman), sort of local godfather, to help them: he convinced some of the witnesses to back off and he found them a lawyer, Danny Snyder (Dustin Hoffman), a drunk who would follow their instructions and read in court the questions that Michael would secretly write for him. They also ask a big favour to Father Bobby (Robert De Niro). The priest will testify that John and Tommy were with him at a game! It was all planned, and it was a good one, they had their revenge. Shakes delivered a guard, now dirty cop, to the Internal Affairs, and the guard was arrested. King Benny went to boss Little Caesar (Wendell Pierce) and handed him the name of the guard that killed Rizzo (Eugene Byrd), his little brother, in that center. Little Caesar had him beaten and then shot. This whole part was ok to me, and every doubt could be easily answered with a bit of good will, like ‘where did shakes find enough evidence to convict that guard?’, well, he’s a journalist with lots of time on his hands, and an endless hate for the man, plus the help of King Benny: in his position he could come to know everything he wanted. What seems now unbelievable is how they got the guard during the trial. I say now because I watched it when I was much much younger, and had paid no attention to details, but now that I’ve seen more of the people of the world, I find it very hard to believe that Ferguson (Terry Kinney) would reply honestly to Snyder’s questions about what went on back in the days. Yes, they justify it saying that he was a drunk but now he’s not anymore, and he’s got a cross, so I’m supposed to believe that he found God, stopped drinking and now feels guilty and because of this he confesses everything? Come on, just like that? A lot of people drink but they don’t go around torturing children, only a sick coward bastard would do that again and again for a year ( but probably much longer if we think of the children that were there before and after the four kids we know). As absurd as it looks, that’s how it goes. Snyder asked him those hard questions and Ferguson admitted it all, even his own involvement, and cried. Of course he was arrested. 

Their friend Carol (Minnie Driver) had a role of no importance, once you think about it, she only filled the female-presence-slot in a movie full of men. Honestly we could have done without Carol. What purpose did she serve? To let us know that Shakes was a good friend because he never asked her out since she first dated Michael and then John, so he chose to not go against his friends? We can sense their bond from everything else, we didn’t need that. By the way, I so did not like that, Carol asking Shakes why he never asked her out. Did she want him too? Michael, John, and Shakes? Tommy should feel really offended! No, I didn’t like that Carol character. 

The actors that played young Michael (Brad Renfro) and young Shakes (Joe Perrino) looked familiar to me but I’ve got no idea of where I saw them. The problem with this movie was that the big revelation in court had the simple result of having Ferguson arrested. It did not bring down the institution, it did not help John and Tommy. They were released because the esteemed priest swore to God that he was with them somewhere else while he obviously wasn’t, and even had the three tickets to prove it. I mean, if you think about it, the whole secret operation was to bring down a guy that started crying after a couple of questions. 

Anyway, it ends with a double assolution, of course, and the friends meeting and laughing together for the last time. They went their separate ways and we are told that John and Tommy died young in a bad was and Michael left the law. They all live alone, Carol with a child and Shakes with a better job in journalism. I don’t know, the movie built up such a suspense, such big expectations from the trial, that it did not seem to deliver what it promised.