Man, what a cast…an inspired combination of living legends, rising stars, young newcomers and one particular A-lister who totally nails a role that would be way, way out of anyone’s comfort zone (well, maybe not Willem Defoe’s). Back in ‘96, the overstuffed marquee alone was enough to make Sleepers worth checking out.
The cast remains the driving force behind the film, which tells the story of Michael, Shakes, John and Thomas, four teen buddies from Hell’s Kitchen. Following a prank that results in someone’s death, they end up incarcerated in a juvenile detention facility. While there, they are repeatedly subjected to physical and sexual abuse at the hands of four guards, led by super-sadistic Sean Nokes (Kevin Bacon). 13 years later, two of them, John and Thomas (Ron Eldard & Billy Cudup), are violent mobsters who unexpectedly spot Nokes in a bar. Ceasing the opportunity for payback, they shoot him dead.
Now they’re on trial for murder. In a surprise turn of events, Michael (Brad Pitt), is the assistant DA who signs on to prosecute them. But he has an ulterior motive, using his position to manipulate the trial…not only to free his friends, but exact revenge on the remaining guards who abused them. To accomplish this, he requires the help of Shakes (Jason Patric) to locate those guards and (more importantly) come up with a witness willing to provide an alibi for John and Thomas.
Brad Pitt gets put in time-out.
Richly drawn characters notwithstanding, Sleepers is ultimately a payback story, its narrative seldom diving too deeply into the moral ambiguities of its protagonists’ actions. And considering the atrocities inflicted on them as children, we wouldn’t want it to. In fact, the only moral quandary is experienced by Father Carillo (Robert De Niro), their life-long mentor who’s asked by Shakes to commit perjury on the stand. As revenge films go, Sleepers isn’t necessarily a “fun” film (the first half is really harrowing), but it’s certainly a satisfying one.
Most of the stacked cast are excellent in their roles. De Niro provides his usual gravitas, while the young actors playing the main characters as boys are engaging, sometimes more so than their adult counterparts. This is especially true regarding Joe Perrino as young Shakes, who’s far more dynamic than Jason Patric (but I never found him to be a particularly interesting actor anyway). However, the most shockingly effective performance belongs to Bacon as Nokes, a truly repellent and menacing turn unlike anything he’d done before at the time. The cast’s other legend, Dustin Hoffman, is perfectly fine in a smaller, underwritten role as a drunken defense lawyer, but I can’t shake the feeling he did it simply as a favor to his buddy, director Barry Levinson.
Elsewhere, there’s good attention to period detail in rendering late-60s Hell’s Kitchen, and despite its length, Levinson keeps things interesting with a lively pace and frequent bursts of intensity. It all looks quite good with this new 4K UHD transfer (but having never seen it on Blu-ray or DVD, I’ve got no basis for comparison). There are two audio options, both of which are DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio. However, one of them is titled “Director’s Remix,” where some of Patric’s voiceover narration is removed. Sweetening the deal are a couple of new retrospective bonus features.
EXTRA KIBBLES
FEATURETTES - The Making of Sleepers and The Art of Casting are both short pieces featuring writer-director Berry Levinson. Not much depth here, but at least they’re new.
DIGITAL COPY
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