Sleepers

Lorenzo "Shakespeare" Carcaterra, Tommy Marcano, Michael Sullivan, and John Reilly are childhood friends living in Hell's Kitchen in the 1960s. Father "Bobby" Carillo (Robert de Niro), their parish priest, being a youth offender himself in the past, tries to teach them right from wrong. The boys still play pranks and also start running small errands for a local gangster named King Benny. In the summer of 1967, the four boys steal a hot dog cart, which they accidentally allow to roll down a set of subway stairs, and it severely injures an elderly man. The boys are sentenced to a 18-month stay at the Wilkinson Home for Boys in Upstate New York. During their stay, the boys are constantly subjected to sexual abuse and torture by head guards Sean Nokes, Henry Addison, Ralph Ferguson and Adam Styler, as if being part of their punishment.

While at the facility, they participate in Wilkinson's annual football game between the guards and inmates. Michael convinces black inmate Rizzo Robinson to play as hard as they can to show the guards they can fight back. He agrees, and helps win the game. Humiliated, the guards move the boys to solitary confinement for weeks, where they are systematically beaten - Rizzo in particular gets it harder and does not survive that savagery. His family is merely told that their son died of pneumonia. In the spring of 1968, shortly before Shakes' release from Wilkinson, he suggests they publicly report the abuse. The others refuse, with Michael asserting that no one would believe them, or care, and they decide never to speak of the abuse again. The night before Shakes is released, Nokes and the other guards arrange a "farewell party" in which the four boys are again brutally abused.

In 1981, John and Tommy, now career criminals, unexpectedly encounter Sean Nokes in a Hell's Kitchen pub. They confront him, but he dismisses the abuse he put them through. John and Tommy shoot him dead in front of witnesses. Michael, by then an assistant district attorney, gets himself assigned to the case; he secretly intends to botch the prosecution and expose what the guards at Wilkinson's did. Along with Shakes, now a reporter, they forge a plan to free John and Tommy and get revenge on the Wilkinson other abusers. With the help of King Benny and Carol, their childhood friend, they carry out their plan using information compiled by Michael on the backgrounds of the Wilkinson staff, helped by Danny Snyder, a washed-up, alcoholic lawyer, to defend John and Tommy.

With the aid of scripted questions Michael secretly drafts in advance, Snyder casts significant doubt on the testimony of a woman guest who witnessed the murder in the pub, while two other witnesses were intimidated into silence about that event. For Michael's plan to fully succeed, however, he must damage Nokes' reputation and convincingly place John and Tommy at another location at the time of the shooting. Ferguson, when called as a witness, admits that Nokes, like the other guards, used to abuse the boys. To clinch the case, however, a key witness was still needed for John and Tommy's alibi. Shakes has a long talk with Father Bobby, who resists at first, but after learning of the horrific abuse they suffered at Wilkinson, the priest reluctantly agrees to perjure himself. At trial, Father Bobby testifies John and Tommy were with him at a New York Knicks game at the time of the shooting and has three ticket stubs to prove it. As a result, John and Tommy are acquitted.

The remaining guards are also punished for their crimes: Henry Addison, by now a politician who still molests children, is abducted and killed near the local airport by black gangsters led by Eddie "Little Caesar" Robinson, Rizzo's elder brother who finally learned the truth about the boy's death at Wilkinson (he learned it from King Benny, who sold him confidential info about how Addison killed Rizzo); Adam Styler, now a corrupt police officer, is imprisoned for taking bribes and murdering a drug dealer.

Michael, "Shakes", John, Tommy, and Carol meet at a local bar to celebrate. It is the last occasion when the four men are together. "Shakes" remains in Hell's Kitchen as a reporter; Michael quits the DA's office, moves to the English countryside, becomes a carpenter and never marries; John and Tommy both die before turning 30 - John succumbs to liver cirrhosis due to excessive alcohol consumption while Tommy is ambushed and murdered by rival criminals. Carol also stays in Hell's Kitchen as a social worker, she has a son and names him John Thomas Michael Martinez, nicknamed "Shakes". It is later revealed that the late John is the boy's biological father.

The first words spoken in the film are: "This is a true story about friendship that runs deeper than blood".[6][7] However, the truthfulness and factual accuracy of the film—and the book upon which it is based—were challenged by the Sacred Heart of Jesus Church and School in Manhattan (the school attended by Lorenzo Carcaterra) and by the Manhattan District Attorney's office, among others.[7][6] Carcaterra has acknowledged that most details in the book were fictionalized, but maintained that the events described in the book actually occurred.[7][8]

Rotten Tomatoes gives the film an overall approval rating of 73% based on 56 reviews, with an average rating of 6.60/10.[9] Review aggregator Metacritic gives it a weighted average score of 49 out of 100 based on 18 critics,[10] indicating "mixed or average reviews".

The film was released in DVD on November 3, 2009 and also in Blu-Ray on August 2, 2011.

• Sleepers at IMDb
• Sleepers at Box Office Mojo
• Sleepers at Rotten Tomatoes
• Sleepers at Metacritic