Movie Review

Movie Review: 'Sleepers' (1996)

EW's GRADE
C

Details Rated: R; Length: 147 Minutes; Genres: Drama, Mystery and Thriller; With: Kevin Bacon, Billy Crudup, Ron Eldard, Jason Patric and Brad Pitt

In Barry Levinson's luridly faithful adaptation of Lorenzo Carcaterra's ''true'' best-seller, four boys growing up in New York City's Hell's Kitchen during the mid-'60s are sent to hell for real when one of their pranks turns tragic. At the Wilkinson Home for Boys, they are raped by a cabal of stone-faced guards. There follows a bloody retribution killing followed by a trial so preposterous it makes the most outlandish courtroom melodrama look like a yawny day on Court TV. In it's screw tightening way, the first hour holds you, but the second is a disaster. Neither Jason Patric nor Brad Pitt has ever been duller (or looked worse — they seem to be having bad-hair and bad-skin days). C
Originally posted Nov 08, 1996 Published in issue #352 Nov 08, 1996 Order article reprints
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