MY MOVIE SHELF: Sleepers

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 183  Days to go: 127

Movie #255:  Sleepers

Sleepers made news twice, first when the original book by Lorenzo Carcaterra was published, and again when the movie came out. It was billed as an autobiographical account of abuse and torture within a juvenile detention center, a revenge killing more than a decade later, and a fixed trial intended to acquit the accused murderers. The question everyone was asking, of course, was did it really happen. Was it real? Lots of people have denied the veracity of Carcaterra’s claims, saying there’s never been a case like this in New York that anyone can find record of. Carcaterra stands by his story, saying only that names, dates, and other identifying details have been changed. I, for one, have no reason to doubt him. If he wanted to write a sensational story, he easily could’ve done so without naming himself as a victim of sexual assault. It would’ve been easier. It would’ve been safer. There is no pot of gold waiting at the end of a rainbow for people who make up stories about being sexually abused, no matter what people assume. It’s a lot more convenient, honestly, not to put your face to having endured that kind of terror at all. Which is why I make it a point to believe and support victims who speak out, as I wish more people would. I believe Carcaterra’s story — every last word of it — but that’s not why I like this movie.

Sleepers, on its own merits, is a gripping story of regret and retribution, of mistakes that you spend your whole life paying for, and of breaking the law in order to achieve justice. It’s about the insular community of Hell’s Kitchen, and how it took care of its own and paid its own debts, with little regard for the rules of the outside world. It’s about boys and the friendship (and secret) they held onto despite growing into vastly different men. It’s about the gray area surrounding what’s right and what’s wrong.

Half the film takes place when Carcaterra (played by Jason Patric — who narrates the film as well — as a man, and Joseph Perrino as a boy) and his friends are young and half when they’re grown. In the ’60s, the boys get into a little trouble here and there — running errands for a local gangster, pulling pranks in church — but never anything serious until one of their pranks goes horribly wrong and they’re sent to reform school. Four of the guards at the facility, led by Sean Nokes (Kevin Bacon), brutalize the boys in every way possible, so when John (Ron Eldard as a man, Geoffrey Wigdor as a boy) and Tommy (Billy Crudup as a man, Jonathan Tucker as a boy) — now hardened criminals — come across Nokes in a bar in the ’80s, they kill him in cold blood, and it comes down to their childhood friend Michael Sullivan (Brad Pitt as a man, Brad Renfro as a boy), now a lawyer in the D.A.’s office, to get them off for the crime while also exposing the guards for what they did and making them pay.

It’s a complex and complicated film, and yet it holds an audience’s attention with its tense balance of what is lawful versus what constitutes justice and with the central conflict of priest Father Bobby (Robert De Niro), who has to decide whether to perjure himself in order to help the boys in his parish. Even if you kind of assume which way he’s going to go, the film does a good job of representing his struggle, and the courtroom scenes (all of them, not just his) are incredibly satisfying.

Okay, so Minnie Driver does not do a great job masking her British accent in favor of a New York one, and she’s maybe a questionable choice to play even a half Puerto Rican, but she still does her best with the role, and the other supporting characters are all great, from Bruno Kirby as Lorenzo’s old school man-of-the-house father to Dustin Hoffman as an alcoholic, drug-addicted, washed up defense attorney. (I’m also a really big fan of all the one-liners from Fat Mancho, played by Frank Medrano.)

The film even details a strong connection the boys have with The Count of Monte Cristo, which, if it is just an addition intended to provide dramatic effect and intent to the tale, it still makes a pretty great comparison of the two stories and how true revenge takes years of patience and planning and waiting for the right moment.

I wouldn’t say I condone the actions of these men — any of these men — but I do understand the boys’ motivation. There’s definitely an aura of karma to it, of poetic justice that maybe supersedes the criminal justice system. And whether it all happened exactly as it’s told here or not, I really appreciate a film that can grab hold of my attention and push my convictions into uncomfortable corners.

MY MOVIE SHELF: Deep Impact

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 296  Days to go: 283

Movie #81: Deep Impact

Back at the start of 1998 there was a lot of hubbub within insider entertainment news about two different “giant asteroid” movies being made (and set to release ) at the same time. Within two months of each other that summer, Deep Impact and Armageddon were released. Armageddon was by far the bigger movie — bigger stars, bigger budget, bigger hit, plus a theme song that railroaded just about everything in its path — but for me, Deep Impact has always been the better one.

Armageddon was always meant to be a flashy, wise-cracking dude movie with explosions, and that’s fine. Those are good, enjoyable popcorn flicks, and they don’t need a lot of substance to succeed. It’s a save-the-world movie, concerned only with those doing the saving. Deep Impact, on the other hand, is a movie about human frailty and heroism — it’s about the people on the ground faced with the hopes and fears of a global mission to divert an extinction-level event-sized asteroid, and the harsh realities that force them to face their own mortality and decide what’s important.

On the surface, one could probably pin Deep Impact‘s humanity on its director Mimi Leder (as opposed to Armageddon‘s testosterone-obsessed Michael Bay), a woman who throughout her career directing (largely) TV episodes has always shown interest in the personal stories associated with great drama. Even her other action thriller motion picture, The Peacemaker, had a villain with an emotional, personal purpose. What makes Deep Impact so exceptional, though, are the multiple stories it encompasses and the breadth of their emotions contained within.

Elijah Wood plays a young high school student named Leo Biederman who is thrust into the spotlight when the anomaly he spots during astronomy club turns out to be an asteroid larger than Mount Everest on a collision course with Earth. But he’s still just a kid, in love with his high school sweetheart Sarah (Leelee Sobieski), interested in sex and motorbikes, and close to his parents. In a quintessentially teenager way, he finds the notoriety kind of thrilling at first, and as the time to collision draws nearer, he fights to hold things together, and matures quite a bit, as he would have to.

Tea Leoni, meanwhile, is Jenny Lerner, an ambitious researcher at MSNBC who stumbles on the story of the asteroid when looking into the questionable resignation of a top government official. She bluffs her way through a confidential meeting with the President (Morgan Freeman) enough to find out the true story and get first question (a significant boost to her career) at the White House press briefing on the matter. Suddenly, she too is thrust into the spotlight, seen by the nation as the face of any news concerning the asteroid. It’s everything she’s wanted professionally, but personally she is suffering. Her father (Maximilian Schell) has left her mother (Vanessa Redgrave) and married a much younger woman — only two years older than Jenny herself. Any other time this state of affairs would be a tough hurdle, but faced with the possible end of all life on Earth, Jenny is at loose ends, unable to find any solid footing — particularly after the suicide of her mother. She shuns her father in anger, but gives up her ride to safety at the zero hour to a colleague she’s always admired (Laura Innes) who has a young daughter, and seeks out her father to reconcile with him. That’s where she needs to be, because her family is what’s most important to her.

The astronauts sent into space to destroy the asteroid are also featured, but as fully realized people with strengths and weaknesses instead of as wacky balls of machismo. These astronauts feature a woman, for one, played by Mary McCormack, who joins Blair Underwood, Ron Eldard, Jon Favreau, Aleksandr Baluev and Robert Duvall on a mission of arrogance, humility, loss, solidarity and ultimately sacrifice. Their mission, above all, is to save mankind if they can, regardless of the cost, and they fulfill it with heartbreaking and heroic resolve.

The movie also has small moments of lovely character work: Leo’s dad (Richard Schiff) giving him items to trade (and hence his blessing) when Leo decides to go back for Sarah. The President facing the nation with calm leadership, pragmatism, hope and eventually heartfelt compassion. The meticulous beauty regimen of Jenny’s mom and the devastating realization that she’s preparing to take her own life. The wrenching goodbyes between Sarah and her parents as they hand over her baby brother to care for and send her off with Leo to survive without them, then their touching embrace as they await their ends.

Deep Impact is great. It’s a movie filled with touching and thoughtful moments, of the wide array of feelings and fears that would be an absolute certainty in the face of such an impending event. It’s a movie that is concerned with the human condition, without sacrificing action and suspense. It explores the realistic, years-long process between discovery and destruction of such an asteroid, and how life continues to go on all that time, despite the looming possibility of the end of the world. It’s an emotional, touching, heartbreaking film. So I guess it’s no surprise that Deep Impact, unlike Armageddon, always leaves me in tears.