71 Sleepers Trivia Questions & Answers

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: Walk Like A Man

The song is by "Frankie Vallie and the Four Seasons".

Answer: leave him a phone message at his office from imaginary girlfriend "Gloria".

Michael knew that he as playing a very dangerous game. By taking this case, he was signing on to work both sides, the prosecution and the defense. Somehow he must bring in a character witness that would open the door to their time at Wilkenson without anyone realizing what he was up to.

Answer: King Benny

King Benny looked after the neighborhood, paid off the police precincts, oversaw everything that went on, within the area. Shakes got a first job running for King Benny. He was a bag man, bringing payoffs to the police precincts. One day he was jumped and saved by an old man. Shakes then asked King Benny if he could take along his friends for protection.

Answer: She sleeps with married men

Shakes is the narrator and one of the four main characters in the movie. As a child he is played by Joe Perrino and as an adult he is played by Jason Patric.

Answer: 13

His last night at Wilkinson's was his 14th birthday.

Answer: Danny Snyder

Danny Snyder was at best, a third rate lawyer, a drunk and he had a drug problem. He was useless as a lawyer, however, he was perfect for reading verbatum, the questions that Michael prepared for him to ask. Michael needed to expose Wilkenson and the abuse the suffered there. That would be the way to get back at each and every one of the guards. Finally, all the files he had kept for years on these men, were going to be of use. As he told Shakes, the only way to get John and Tommy acquitted was to put theme somewhere else, for the time of the murder. They needed a witness.

Answer: For Lucky Luciano, he was a hitman

The neighborhood was filled with rumors that had some truth to them. King Benny was granted respect and in turn, the neighborhood got his protection.

Answer: Michael Sullivan

Michael Sullivan winds up as the lawyer that risks everything to save his friends Tommy and John when they are put on trial for murder.

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: He had a bum leg.

The boys were playing basketball with Father Bobby, and he was telling either Tommy or John that they could make something of themselves with art, and used Michelangelo as an example.

Answer: the men at the bar and Mr. & Mrs. Salinas.

As long as these witnesses testified, John and Tommy were finished. They had to have King Benny's help in one way or another. Firstly, he had to get the word out to John and Tommy's crew in Hell's Kitchen to leave Michael alone. Once they found out he took the case against his friends, he was a marked man.

Answer: A drug dealer

Hell's Kitchen had no tolerance for crimes it considered to be below its standards. An example had to be made. This drug dealer sold a packet of heroin to the 12 year old son of a Puerto Rican numbers runner. The boy died. Now, so did the drug dealer.

Answer: Two

This is how he gets the hot dog vendor to look away as he runs off without paying.

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: Take books to older people

Shakes told Father Bobby that he shouldn't smoke.

Answer: feeding pigeons

King Benny informed Shakes that the "suits at the bar" changed their minds about testifying and that Michaels questions to the Salinas' were aimed at discrediting them. But........they still needed a witness to put John and Tommy in another location for the key time.

Answer: Tommy Marcano

Shakes is joking around with Carol about why he didn't ever ask her out.

Answer: A piece of bread

Marlboro, the only decent gaurd at Wilkinson's, stops Nokes from forcing the boys to eat off the floor.

Answer: Father Robert Carillo

Shakes met Carol, who never was told of the abuse they suffered at Wilkenson, and together they went to see Father Bobby. Shakes knew that he had to tell Father Bobby every horrible abuse they endured in order to allow him to make a fair decision about being a witness, and he did. Carol stood by and listened, in shock.

Answer: Irish/Puerto Rican

Carol was always with the boys. She was paired off with Michael Sullivan mostly, but was friends with all of them. They lovingly referred to her as the neighborhood half-breed. She went along with them on everything, even when, on the opening night of the Ice Capades at Madison Square Garden, she was the lookout as they peeked at the girls undressing in the dressing room.

Answer: Rizzo

Rizzo was played by Eugene Byrd, who was later in "8 Mile" with Eminem.

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: John and Tommy

Shakes started a career in journalism, and Michael was a lawyer/carpenter. This also come up when King Benny tells the West Side Boys not to touch Michael, but to continue verbal threats.

Answer: Frank Marchico

During this meeting Shakes showed Marchico pictures of Adam Styler doing actual drug deals. Iron clad evidence that could be used not only to evict him from the police force without pension, but to prosecute him.