Sleepers – Review

Sleepers is a dark and serious drama with a stellar cast and a mature story, which is based on a book. The book is supposedly autobiographical, however there is some debate over how true of a story it is. As four friends, Lorenzo “Shakes” Carcaterra (Perrino); Michael Sullivan (Renfro), Tommy Marcano (Tucker) and John Reilly (Wigdor) grow up in Hell’s Kitchen during the 1960s. This inseparable group lived in railroad apartments and during hot summers would play stickball and jump in the river as well as find pranks to play.

They all worked as altar boys, along with Father Bobby Carillo (De Niro) who gave them guidance and attempted to keep them in line. The kids were at least enthralled by the temptation of listening to confessions as well as finding the best pranks to pull. While some of this is harmless mischief, other times the boys wind up in mature situations. Unfortunately, during the summer of 1967, their lives are forever changed and what is meant to be a quick hot dog score leads to events gone horribly wrong.

Innocence is lost, never to be found again, and yet, this is only the beginning of the story as the tale continues to turn down dark paths. The film explores friendship, crime, youth, crime, consequence, morality, power, justice, abuse, growth, redemption, confinement, revenge, trauma and more. Part courtroom drama, and part life drama, Sleepers covers a lot of ground.

Based on the aforementioned book, the long and winding script is fairly good all around. It is a tad slow moving at times, but it brings some emotional heft and complex sentiments. There are realistic and strong characters, all brought to life by excellent acting.

The director keeps the considerable story in line while delivering decent pacing despite its runtime. The bit of fun that we get to experience as the boys grow up is short as ultimately the film dips into bleak territory often based on its subject matter. Sometimes life can change in the blink of an eye, as is the case with this story. The ripples of consequence shall continue throughout the lives of all the characters involved. While not an all-time classic, Sleepers remains quite good.