Billy Crudup

A few days ago I watched “Sleepers“. I guess the title of the movie makes it sound like a horror film and that’s why I missed it for all these years. Somehow this time I decided to check the cast and was very surprised to find so many celebrities in – Kevin Bacon, Brad Pitt, Robert De Niro, Dustin Hoffman, and a few others.

The film turned out be excellent. First of all, the story, which is fascinating. It is said to be based on a true story, however there are only so many people who can back it up. But it’s not really important if it is true or not. It’s realistic enough and has enough unexpected twists and turns.

Secondly, plenty of good acting. There was enough freedom given to each of the actors, and there was enough to explore and enough screen time to show the results.

Thirdly, the technical part. While the film didn’t need as much of special effects as any modern action film (which it is not), there were quite a few challenges, which were solved nicely. The back in time feeling, boys’ memories, and the atmosphere for each scene, varying from childish fun to adult sadness – all were done excellent.

Overall, a highly recommended movie with 5 stars from me.

“Watchmen” turned out to be quite a disappointment for me personally. Maybe that’s because I am not much into comics and maybe because I don’t know who watchmen are and how they came about. But still…

The poster was sort of speaking for itself, and film’s opening credits were pretty cool. It started pretty well. But then it went into a totally different direction. Instead of being your regular comics-based story with a bunch of good and bad guys, and a fight between them, this time it was all about the psychology and drama of a superhero. There were quite a few superheros, who, for some reason, didn’t seem to be really superheros, but rather a bunch of guys in weird costumes. They didn’t do anything superheroic, didn’t have any tricks up their sleeves, didn’t care much about anything else.

The visual effects were excellent, but with no base for those effects, no action, they started to grow pretty boring. And the film went on and on and on (almost 3 hours), and by the time of it I myself was almost falling asleep. I pulled it through, but barely.

If you are into superheros and everything that surrounds them, then you’ll probably enjoy this film. For me though it was somewhere on the scale of 3 out of 10.