Sleepers

Released 1996
Stars Jason Patric, Brad Pitt, Ron Eldard, Billy Crudup, Robert DeNiro, Joseph Perrino, Brad Renfro, Geoffrey Wigdor, Jonathan Tucker, Kevin Bacon, Minnie Driver, Dustin Hoffman, Bruno Kirby, Vittorio Gassman
Directed by Barry Levinson

Four boys grow up in New York's Hell's Kitchen and end up in a reform school. While there, they're beaten and sodomized by sadistic guards. When they grow up, two of the boys gun down the worst of the guards. Meanwhile, the other two friends manipulate the legal system to gain revenge on the other guards and to free their two murderous friends. I found this movie severely lacking in its morality. It's one thing to exact revenge on the guards, who certainly deserved it, but it's another thing to place your sympathy on two psychopaths, who desperately need to be imprisoned.

Summary by Bill Alward