Sleepers

I'm definitely not a movie person but sometimes I do watch.  Yesterday night I was caught in "Sleepers", old movie - 1996 - that is still worth watching every now and then. The story is gripping, the themes are deep (friendship, vendetta, sexual abuse) and the cast exceptionally good 

(De Niro, Hoffman, Pitt, Bacon and the Italian Vittorio Gassman to name just a few). 

The movie comes from the book "Sleepers" by Lorenzo Carcaterra, who claims all the story to be true - basically. Of course its claim to be a true story brought about some debate (in the US), but as producer/director Levinson said in an interview after the film version release, ''I still don't know what is this big quest for the truth, with four boys no one ever heard of. 'What's this big thing we need to get into? There are no historical figures here. Outside of New York, it's almost like, 'I don't know what it is.' ''
Clearly the big debate is about the presentation of the juvenile criminal system and of a case in a NY tribunal that has no record - according to official statements. But the movie doesn't come out as an accusation to the system, actually: it's a story of individuals. 4 friends (the boys) and 4 other friends (the guards) playing against each other in a lifetime deadly game. Is replying to a stand that the movie doesn't want to take a sign of a guilty conscience?