Counting Down My Favourite Flicks: "Sleepers" Quiz

Answer: Hell's Kitchen

The 1996 film, "Sleepers", focuses on Shakes, Michael, Tommy and John, four friends who grow up in Hell's Kitchen, New York, during the mid-1960s. During the opening credits, it is revealed that the year is 1966, and the location is Hell's Kitchen, New York.

In fact this particular neighbourhood is of significant importance to the film, and is presented throughout as a place capable of keeping secrets, and yet it also offers its youth a safe place to play. The neighbourhood's ability to protect its own proves to be all the more crucial when the boys are adults, and is a major factor in their ability to pull off their final scam.

However as boys, the four main characters are watched over by Father Bobby Carillo, (played by Robert De Niro), who does all he can to steer them towards the right path, and keep them out of trouble.

The film regularly moves between the past and the present, flitting between the boys' pasts and their lives as adults, in order to tell the story of their lost innocence, and explain their actions as adults.

Answer: King Benny

Father Bobby is fiercely protective of his young parishioners, and does all he can to steer them in the right direction, which proves to be a difficult task in the gritty world of Hell's Kitchen. When one of John's mother's boyfriends beats him so badly that he has to spend time in hospital, Father Bobby steps in.

After listening to the boyfriend call John a "little punk" who "got out of line", Father Bobby resorts to a boxing metaphor to make his point. Pointing out the difference in size between the boyfriend and John Reilly, Father Bobby calls the man "a big guy", who is fighting "way out of" his division, by picking on someone who is "not even a featherweight".

As the boyfriend then starts to falter, insisting "it was a slap, it was nothing", Father Bobby says forcefully, making his meaning plain, "Well, next time you'll be meeting me, and I may not be in your division, but I do weigh more than 85 pounds." He goes on to further hammer home his point, by insisting that the man "won't need a doctor when I'm done", but rather a priest to pray over his body.

Answer: Shakes

Though the boys have pulled the hot dog vendor prank numerous times before, on this particular occasion things go drastically wrong. Everything starts out the way it should, with Shakes walking up to the vendor and ordering a hot dog, before running off with it without paying.

The vendor then gives chase, while Tommy, John and Michael feast upon the hotdogs in the cart. However unlike previous occasions, the three boys left by the cart decide to move it, in order to antagonise the vendor even more.

When Shakes arrives back, he exclaims "You guys were supposed to take the hot dogs, not the wagon", before helping the other three push the cart towards the subway. When they reach the stairwell, they precariously balance the cart on the top step, intending to force the vendor to grab hold of it, which will then allow the four of them to escape.

But the cart is too heavy, and they can only watch in horror as it tumbles down the stairs, before smashing into a man walking up from the subway station.

Answer: Shakes

Of the four boys, it is Shakes who receives the shortest sentence, due to the fact that he "arrived on the scene" after "the theft of the cart had already occurred". As a result, he is sentenced to "no more than one year, no less than six months at the Wilkinson Home for Boys", while the other three are each sentenced to serve "no more than eighteen months, no less than one year" at the same institution. From this point onwards, the boys' relatively carefree childhood disappears for good, and their innocence is ruined by the physical and sexual abuse they are forced to endure at the hands of the guards at the Wilkinson Home for Boys.

Answer: True

During their sentencing hearing, the judge reveals that without "the intervention of Father Robert Carillo", who spoke "in glowing terms" on their behalf, the boys would have received a "much stiffer punishment". Adding that he still had his "doubts as to" their "inherent goodness", the judge ends ominously with, "Only time will serve to prove me wrong". From there the boys are transferred to the hostile environment of the Wilkinson Home for Boys, where a nightmare awaits them, which will change the course of their lives forever.

Answer: Triple murder

When Father Bobby comes to visit Shakes, the latter admits that though he "loved Father Bobby", he "couldn't stand to look at him" for fear that he'd look right "past the fear and shame, right through to the truth". Terrified that Father Bobby would be able to tell that he'd been abused, Shakes asks him not to visit any more, prompting Father Bobby to tell him about his own best friend, who is doing time in Attica on a triple murder charge. Revealing that "this place killed him" by making him not care anymore, Father Bobby urges Shakes not to allow the same thing to happen to him, prompting the latter to reveal that he "never felt as close to anyone" as in that moment with Father Bobby.

Answer: He never asked .

As an adult, Shakes approaches Carol, (who is now dating John), in order to ask if she is willing to help John and Tommy's case, by accessing certain information only she, (as a social worker), has access to. During this conversation, Carol asks why Shakes never asked her out, prompting the latter to reveal that he didn't think Carol would ever say yes.

He is therefore surprised when she replies that he was wrong, dead wrong.

Answer: In order to lose it

When an adult Shakes visits Carol to ask for her help, he also informs her that her old flame, Michael, is not actually out to convict John and Tommy of the murder of Sean Nokes, (played by Kevin Bacon), one of their guards from the Wilkinson Home for Boys.

He tells her that, on the contrary, Michael is taking the case in order to lose it, because he is the best kind of friend - "the kind who'll throw away everything to help his friends". He also warns her not to tell John about their plans, because the "more he thinks this thing's hopeless, the better it might work".

Answer: John and Tommy

After successfully pulling off their plan, Michael, Shakes, Tommy, John and Carol all wait a month before finally making contact with each other. When they all finally meet up and have a meal together, they are jubilant and glad to be back in each other's company.

In the background, an adult Shakes takes on the role of narrator, explaining that "It was our special night, and we held it for as long as we could" because "it was our happy ending", and "the last time we would ever be together again". For soon enough, both Tommy and John are dead, the latter as a result of "a bottle of boiler gin", and the former from five close range gunshots.

Answer: Anyone who has spent time in a juvenile prison

During the course of the film, the adult Shakes, (played by Jason Patric), reveals that the term "sleepers" is "a street name for anyone who" has "spent time in a juvenile facility", which includes the four friends, Michael, Shakes, Tommy and John. The film is based on the 1995 novel of the same name, written by Lorenzo Carcaterra, and both open with the same lines: "This is a true story about friendship that runs deeper than blood". Whether or not there is any real 'truth' in the story has been the subject of much debate and controversy, but either way, the film is worth watching, and is powerful in its own right, no matter what the "truth" of its story is.