As real as it gets. Review on Sleepers Movie

Sleeper in lay terms means a guy who has been in juvenile prison. And Sleepers is the story of four such guys who had to be imprisoned for an innocent crime.

Four young boys who were just looking for fun end up committing a crime that causes the death of an innocent man and as a result of which they are jailed for eighteen months. Although the prison is a remand home it is worse than the state prison. The boys are tortured to the eccentricities of the jailors there for whom it is very easy to boss over little boys. The boys are punished for every little offence with unbearable punishments. And if that was not enough they are also molested more than often. This undoubtedly leaves a scar on all of them. Each one of them takes it in their own way and grows up to be a different man. Except for two of them who turn out to be gangsters. One becomes a journalist and the other a district attorney. The role of the attorney is essayed by Brad Pitt. All his life he has been planning revenge on the guys but can’t carry out his plans. Before he can get down to doing that, two of his gangster friends spot one of the jailors and kill him in cold blood. The story there on takes another turn. Where Brad Pitt although being the district attorney has to fight the case to lose – so that his friends can go scott free of a crime they did commit.

The cast is strongly supported by Robert DeNiro and Dustin Hoffman. The makers of the film claim that the story is a real one but the US court denied of any such convicts or any such trial ever taken place. If these guys did exist, one can only say that what they did was not wrong by any standard.