How likely is is.....? (SPOILERS)

I always wondered about the first point. One or two maybe but not four. I mean they weren't priests they could go home and have sex with a woman so it can't have been frustration. Likewise the fact that they were all capable of systematic child sex abuse is more than coincidence.

Good guys may not finish last but they sure as sh*t don't finish first!

1) the way I saw it. The alpha male (Kevin bacon) probably saw it as power thing and talked the others into doin it. They drank a lot so it was much easier to talkthem into doing something like that.

My Opinion

1. Product of work environment combined with peer pressure. The Catholic priests that are in the news for child molestation go after the alter boys because of convenience. Someone previously posted that Nokes was sort of a bully and may have convinced the others to join him.

2. The point of having Ferguson was to show that Nokes was not a good person not to confess to everything. Plus being a sunday school teacher, they were counting on Ferguson to have SOME conviction

3. Reilly & Marcano saw Nokes for the first time after the period of sexual abuse which has to be very tough to deal with initially, therefore their actions were irrational and emotionally motivated.

1. I look at this from the eyes of a predator. If someone was sexually attracted to young boys, then they would go for jobs where they had easy access to the young boys. Add the fact that the young boys was in trouble and would be easy pray. I also agree with the alpha male aspect. You may have pedophiles that will be passive enough not to do what the guards did, but the Alpha pedophile brought it to the level they did. By doing this it allowed submissive pedophiles to act out there sick desires.

2. I can't remember if they evaluated the guy before hand, but odds are he would be the weakest link of the four. They picked him out of the three remaining guards because they felt he would be the easiest to break. They also built it up to take the guy off guard. I also get the impression that him and the other three guards was pushed into acting out there desires for young children so there was guilt and remorse.

3. I would say this was pure impulse from the two characters. They gave a back history of them as grown ups that they didn't care about going to jail, they did drugs and was cold. IT was a pure act of passion.

A man can change his stars
Fear me, Love me, do as I say, and I'll be your slave.

1.) That these 4 homosexual/bisexual pedophiles would end up all working at the same institution, and conveniently work the same shift? (Ritual child abusers, despite how often they appear in the news, are not really that common when you consider the entire population. Plus, there are fewer homosexuals/bisexuals than straights in general, so that makes it even more of a stretch.)
They didn't have to be complete psychopaths or degenerates, it could be a combination of being at the wrong place/time and having a weak, follower personality. The three followers probably would have been fine with a different supervisor. The drinking just helped them to ease into the situation.

2.) That you could count on one of them to immediately crack under pressure on the stand, and confess everything? (The movie keeps telling us how "brilliant" Brad Pitt's master plan is, but it seems to be built on a lot of luck.)
A combination of luck and planning. The fact that Fergusen was now more of a devout Christian, teaching sunday school or whatever, made him more vulnerable to guilt/remorse of his previous actions. He had made a change for the better - unlike Nokes who just scoffed when faced with being confronted by his 2 victims.

3.) That 2 experienced criminals/killers wouldn't wait outside a restaurant for their prey to leave, and kill him there...rather than open fire inside a restaurant where people know them?
I don't know, I mean waiting outside would make sense to me, but these guys had slid into deviant behavior, or perhaps it was somewhat a crime of passion, seeing your tormentor all of a sudden, enjoying a casual dinner in the same resaurant they may have considered their 'turf'.

1) Sexual crimes are influenced less by any sexual attraction towards the victim, and more on the thrill one can get from being in power, in totally control. Many priests found to be abusing young boys identify as straight men; they simply had most access to boys, so they abused boys. If they were around some girls, they would abuse them, too, because the gender didn't matter as long as it was someone weaker then them i.e. a child.

2)The guard they picked to go on the witness stand was now an upstanding citizen and if teaching Sunday school was anything to go by, a man of God. Plus, he probably wasn't expecting that anyone was going to ask about what went on at the detention center. Put together his new found morality and the element of surprise and you got someone more than likely to crack under pressure.

3)Probably the heat of moment got to them. The mere presence of the guy that tormented them so horribly made all sense go out the window.

The Player: We're actors! We're the opposite of people!

Hey, brother...~ Buster, AD

1) Like previous posters said,it wasn't really about the sex(most of them were married,I believe even Noakes was wearing a ring in that first shot of him we see him in).It was purely about the power over the boys,it probably wasn't even about the sex but "teaching the boys a lesson" as Nokes said many times.Making them respect and fear them and what better way to control a bunch of kids than to break their spirits,and again what better,easier and faster way to do that than to completely and utterly hummiliate them and use them like that.

2)I don't think they were counting on him to break down at the stand like that,that was an added bonus(esp. since it didn't nor would help their case in any way,if anything if it came out that John and Tommy were in Wilkenson at the same time as Nokes it would automatically give them a motive for killing him and it would hurt them,so it was risky business to say the least).They were trying to "open the door" to the horrors that happenned over there,making the accussations and letting the public know that something fishy was going down there so that it would hopefully lead to people checking things out.They chose Ferguson because he seemed "squeeky clean" and he was working in social services(thus making it more likely for people to start looking into it a bit more).Of course Ferguson almost immediatelly when the questions started about the tortures etc recognised the two boys.That confrontation alone,along with the fact he himself was a father by then,he was a man of God and the years of guilt he probably had felt since "escaping" Nokes' control led to the breakdown,but you could clearly see(and it was brilliantly acted by all actors I must add) how surprised and ecstatic they were when he said that "yes" and admitted to everything...you could clearly see they were all struggling not to start shouting out of pure joy!

3)Again like other posters said,it wasn't about making a hit,it wasn't even the reason why they went there in the first place.They saw the man that had hurt them after years,and John was clearly upset even after all those years.It wasn't them tracking him down and planning how to kill him,it was them being at the same place with the bastard for the first time in all those years and for the first time they had the upper hand.They didn't think things through,they just wanted revenge and they took it!

It wasn't about 'homosexual/bisexual'. To a degree, it wasn't even about pedophilia.

If you read the book, Noakes and... I believe it was Addison had problems with women, and severe power issues. It was about fear. They feed off the fear of the four young boys, because it was the only time in their lives that they were SOMEBODY. They held the power over these four boys. The other two men (including the one on the stand) basically just followed along. Much like many of the Nazis, these men didn't necessarily like what was going on, or even agree with it, but they went along with it, because they were weak-willed, easily lead men.

As for the third part of your question... If you listen as Shakes narrates, he tells us how both Johnny and Tommy have serious cocaine addictions. Not to mention... seeing their childhood abuser, knowing that they held the power for the first time... It's a heady experience. Add that to a long-term cocaine addiction, and yeah, I'd say it's plausible. I'm not saying I believe the story is true, but not for those reasons.