Sleepers Critic Reviews

As entertainment, the movie functions successfully. But I don't believe the story is true--not true to the facts, and not true to the morality it pretends to be about.Read the full review

By the end, the main thing that's been abused is the audience's intelligence.Read the full review

The film's tone works overtime at mythologizing tawdry incidents into some ultimate epic about the lost innocence of youth. Gilded trash is more like it.Read the full review

Two and one- half hours of gripping entertainment.Read the full review

Sleepers, for all the doubts it raises, is the work of a man who speaks for absent friends and "for the children we were." It's his secret heart.Read the full review

A visual masterpiece that powerfully explores male cruelty, too.Read the full review

As directed by Barry Levinson and acted by an incredible collection of male stars, Sleepers settles the authenticity question by allowing not a whiff of real life into its universe.Read the full review

Muddy, confused, and worst of all boring, Sleepers grinds to the preordained halt shared by any over-budgeted epic that lacks the simple necessity of good story.Read the full review

Engrosses if it doesn't fully convince. [18 October 1996, p.1D]Read the full review