'Sleepers': Violence, revenge make for box-office hit

By Dini S. Djalal

JAKARTA (JP): Bleeding-heart Bill may be the leader of the free world, but the conservative tide sweeping the United States is turning into a full-force gale. In the whirlwind of reactionary uprising, some fundamental ethics are being uprooted to oblivion.

In Barry Levinson's new blockbuster Sleepers, a man is killed by two of his former rape victims. The remainder of the film argues that this is justice. That's justice as defined by four streetwise boys raised in Hell's Kitchen, a New York City neighborhood where "domestic violence was a cottage industry", deadpanned narrator Shakes (Jason Patric).

Following the box-office success of A Time to Kill, in which a grief-stricken father avenges his daughter's rape by shooting her rapists, vigilantism has become Hollywood's topic du jour. Producers are zooming in on audiences cheering on the oppressed as they brandish their Colt-45s and take the law into their own hands. The message? Scum must die, and no such thing as the constitution is gonna stop them from taking an eye for an eye. Are U.S. legislators debating the capital punishment bill listening to the angry mobs?

It is amidst this mood of perverse people power that the morally flawed Sleepers raked in the big bucks. The star-studded cast is an added attraction -- the credits read like an issue of People magazine.

But a stellar cast does not guarantee movie magic, particularly when neither the uninspired script nor the direction coaxes passion out of the actors, and empathy out of audiences. The exceptions are the child actors, and Kevin Bacon (as sadistic head guard Nokes), who always makes the most of his roles. Dustin Hoffman also puts in a praiseworthy cameo as an alcoholic lawyer.

Then there's Robert DeNiro, a great actor who now seems to enjoy playing himself, or rather the industry's image of DeNiro. There's a scene in which the camera focuses on DeNiro's face for a long time as he goes through his now-standard facial twitches. It's a cheap shot at emotional depth.

The adult versions of the four teenagers fare little better. Sex symbol Brad Pitt (as assistant district attorney Michael Sullivan) sleepwalked through his scenes. When he does attempt the "Noo Yawk" accent, he sounds like he's got cotton in his mouth. Jason Patric does not live up to the hype of being "intense", and instead does a passable imitation of a fly on the wall. We're supposed to believe they are best friends, but with sour-faced friends like these, being a recluse seems more fun.

But then, that's the whole point of the film: how physical and sexual abuse turned four innocent, happy-go-lucky boys into a walking advertisement for Prozac. The first half of the film documents in exhaustive detail, but with the easy sway of an expert cinematographer, just how happy they were that Summer of Love (1967), dancing to the tunes of the Beach Boys. Shakes, Mikey, Tommy and John were homeboys romping through the "cement jungle over which (they) were rulers". Watching over their childhood pranks was Father Bobby (Robert DeNiro), the infallible man of God who loves his altar boys as if they were his own.

One afternoon, Shakes' abusive father (the chilling Bruno Kirby) tells them a story of murder, and hollers "revenge, revenge". This was not the first sign of the movie's lack of subtlety for dialog or symbolism, and it wasn't the last.

Hypocrisy

The first inkling of cliche was right at the opening, when Shakes says: "This is a story about friendship that runs deeper than blood." But as the film unfolds, the concept of friendship, as well as morality and compassion, seems awash underneath a mass of self-absorption and machismo. Despite all the drawn-out scenes of boyhood camaraderie, what stuck most in my mind was the shameless hypocrisy of their world.

This is a film about payback. When a prank turns deadly, the boys are sent to the Wilkinson Home for Boys, a juvenile detention center where rape and torture are part of the curriculum. The boys survive the ordeal, but as adults, John and Tommy run into head guard Nokes and, having become professional criminals following their "reform", blow their torturer away. The rest of this very long film shows how Pitt and Patric mastermind a legal scam to let their murderous friends off the hook.

Foundations for a riveting drama or rubbish? With its score of violins and sentimental period settings, it would not be accepted as the latter. Sleepers tries its best to play on our heartstrings, but it is doubtful if it has a heart of its own.

At this point, dear readers probably think sympathy is not in my vocabulary. After all, these boys were regularly beaten and sodomized, so of course they want revenge. To which my reply stands: Is it worse to be abused by strangers or by a person you love, such as in the case of Shakes' mother, who was regularly beaten by her husband? She never chose to stab her husband with a meat cleaver, because we are to accept that his violent behavior is the result of the abuse he suffered in jail. So not only are we supposed to give this mean guy a break, but we are meant to view vengeance and so-called justice as a man's prerogative. If Sleepers has a heart at all, its gender is male.

Spot the film's other inconsistencies. Nurture over nature, the film argues, meaning that evil deeds can transform good guys, such as John and Tommy, into bad guys. In that case, doesn't the murdered Nokes, most likely another product of violent upbringing, also deserve a fair hearing? Or is he just "naturally" evil? With this vicious circle of blame and vengeance, when will the violence end?

It doesn't. The ending of this screen adaptation of Lorenzo Carcaterra's autobiographical novel (the accuracy of which has since been disputed, although that didn't stop the producers from paying Carcaterra US$2 million for the film rights) did not give the main characters a lasting satisfaction and, for me, left an empty spot where the tear-soaked Kleenexes should be. It also left me thinking: What was that all about? Its shamelessly male- dominated perspective on the supposed sanctity of childhood and the stigma of homosexuality -- all western societal constructs -- left me cold. Equally upsetting was its so-called triumph over the virtues of the Catholic Church: Are there any limits these smug filmmakers will not cross? Barry Levinson's great films, like Avalon and Diner, have been about happier times. Levinson should stay out of the dark side because, once in darkness, he can't seem to find any redeeming light.