SLEEPERS
A film review by Michael Redman
Copyright 1996 Michael Redman
**** (out of ****)
It's about time! After sitting through weeks of decidedly mediocre films, we've finally got a winner.
Based on the best-selling (and reportedly true) novel and directed by Barry Levinson ("Diner", "Good Morning Vietnam", "Rain Man", "The Natural"), this disturbing film is certainly the best thing currently on the screen. It may be the best movie of the year so far.
Following the life of four men, the story begins in the tough Hell's Kitchen neighborhood of New York where the boys are treading a fine line between the influences of their priest Father Bobby (Robert DeNiro) and King Benny, the local mob chieftain. They're experiencing the typical city kid life until the hot summer day in 1966 when their lives change forever.
A petty theft that goes wrong and almost kills a man results in the boys being sent to the Wilkinson Reform School. While at the detention center, the boys are abused in every possible way by the guards, lead by a particularly sinister Kevin Bacon.
The rest of the movie takes place years later in 1981 when two of the boys, grown to become amoral killers, run into Bacon in a bar, pull out their guns and murder him where he sits. Their other two friends, a reporter and an attorney in the district attorney's office, scheme to set the killers free and expose the evils of the reform school.
The central theme of the film is revenge and how much of a soul is traded away to achieve it. Is it legitimate to lie, cheat and steal in order to punish a greater wrong? Father Bobby's decision is especially agonizing: the man versus the church.
The film is so powerful in its images and concepts that some scenes are tremendously uncomfortable to watch. The abuses, while not graphic, are some of the most intensely effective moments in cinema.
Rarely do we see a film with so many elements going for it. The actors, DeNiro, Dustin Hoffman, Brad Pitt and the rest, are all wonderful. The story is riveting; the cinematography, excellent and the direction, engrossing. It took days to get the pictures out of my mind. And that's a good thing.
[This review appeared in The Bloomington Voice, Bloomington, Indiana, 10/24/96. Michael Redman can be reached at mredman@bvoice.com]
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