Sneakers
by Phil Alden Robinson
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DVD details
Actor: Dan Aykroyd, Gary Hershberger, Jo Marr, Robert Redford, Sidney PoitierDirector: Phil Alden Robinson
Writer: Phil Alden Robinson
Producer: Lawrence Lasker
Writer: Lawrence Lasker
Producer: Lindsley Parsons Jr.
Producer: Walter F. Parkes
Writer: Walter F. Parkes
Producer: William M. Elvin
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; French (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); Spanish (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: Anamorphic Widescreen, 1.85:1
Running Time: 126 minutes
DVD Release Date: 1998-03-31
Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Universal Studios
DVD Reviews of Sneakers
DVD Review: The Hot Rock meets Hackers
Summary: 5 Stars
From the writers who brought you WarGames. It also reminds me of the Redford film from the 70s, The Hot Rock. Both that and Sneakers are enjoyable, intelligent caper films the whole family can watch. Nice jazzy score, too.
FYI, my version (the 2003 disc) includes a commentary track by the writers and director.
DVD Review: Hah. Don't kid yourself. It's not that organized
Summary: 5 Stars
Hah. Don't kid yourself. It's not that organized
Sneakers has an unabashed leftist slant, but in spite of that it is a pretty good high tech espionage thriller. Robert Redford plays Martin Brice, alias Martin Bishop. A Hacker since the 60's, he got away because he went out for pizza, while his partner, Cosmo went to prison. Years later Martin is still underground but he makes his living robbing banks using high tech schemes and subterfuge. The difference is that now he is employed by the banks themselves to expose weaknesses in their security. When he is approached by the NSA he at first refuses, as he doesn't work for the government, but when the choice is between working for them and getting his record expunged or going to prison, he accepts.
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Martin Bishop: You know I could have been in the NSA, but they found out my parents were married.
==============================
The job is to get a black box made by a mathematician that contains an algorithm capable of cracking any code.
Martin leads a rag tag group of operatives with various specialties. Whistler (David Strathairn) is a phone phreak modeled after a real life phone phreak, also blind, with perfect pitch, who was able to control phone switches by whistling the codes (on a side note, another phone phreak was known as Captain Crunch because he discovered that a whistle from a box of cereal could also switch phones). Donald Crease (Sidney Poitier) is a former CIA man who had to quit because of his temper. Mother (Dan Aykroyd) is the resident conspiracy theorist. He is always getting under Crease's skin spouting his crazy theories about cattle mutilations or the JFK Assassination Conspiracy, the mother of all conspiracies.
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Crease: Now what are you saying, the NSA killed Kennedy?
Mother: No, they shot him but they didn't kill him. He's still alive.
=====================
Carl (River Phoenix) is the precocious rep for the younger generation of hackers.
Together, they get the black box, but at the hand off they figure out that the NSA agents are not who they claim to be. Cosmo (Ben Kingsley), Martin's old friend, is behind it. He has gone over to the dark side. He wants to use the box to bring down the whole financial system, causing global chaos -- not unlike the situation we find ourselves in at present. The second act involves getting the box back from the bad guys, who will stop at nothing to prevent them.
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Cosmo: I'm sorry if he hurt you. I'm afraid Wallace doesn't like you very much.
Martin Bishop: You oughta have that guy checked for rabies.
Cosmo: Rabies occurs only in warm-blooded animals.
===============
Call it Mission Improbable, but apart from the universal code cracking box most of the technology is pretty accurate and cleverly implemented. The tone hovers between light comedy and high tech espionage thriller, but with a cast as charming as this, that is an easy caper for them to pull off.
Robert Redford, River Phoenix, Sidney Poitier, Ben Kingsley, David Strathairn... what a stellar cast. Check out River Phoenix in Running on Empty, or Strathairn in Good Night, and Good Luck. The politics are half baked, and there is wishful thinking involved, but Sneakers makes a good case that the good guys will prevail because they are smarter, and that is a good antidote for the paranoia that movies like Oliver Stone's JFK inspire, where some rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches towards Bethlehem to be born.
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Dr. Gunter Janek: It would be a breakthrough of Gaussian proportions and allow us to acquire the solution in a dramatically more efficient manner.
=====================================
Good Night, and Good Luck (Widescreen Edition) (2005) .... David Strathairn was Edward R. Murrow
Exit to Eden (1994) .... Dan Aykroyd was Fred Lavery
Indecent Proposal (1993) .... Robert Redford was John Gage
Field of Dreams (Widescreen Two-Disc Anniversary Edition) (1989) .... James Earl Jones was Terence 'Terry' Mann (Directed by & Screenplay by Phil Alden Robinson)
Running on Empty (1988) .... River Phoenix was Danny Pope / Michael Manfield
Matewan (1987) .... James Earl Jones was 'Few Clothes' Johnson, David Strathairn was Police Chief Sid Hatfield, and Mary McDonnell was Elma Radnor
Gandhi (1982) .... Ben Kingsley was Mohandas K. Gandhi
All the President's Men (1976) .... Robert Redford was Bob Woodward
Three Days of the Condor (1975) .... Robert Redford was Joseph Turner / The Condor
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967) .... Sidney Poitier was Dr. John Wade Prentice
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Cosmo: There I was in prison. And one day I help a couple of older gentlemen make some free telephone calls. They turn out to be, let us say, good family men.
Martin Bishop: Organized crime?
Cosmo: Hah. Don't kid yourself. It's not that organized.
============================
DVD Review: I LOVE this movie!
Summary: 5 Stars
This is one of my all time most favorite movies. Robert Redford is perfect in this role and the rest of the cast is amazing too. This movie is suspenseful and funny and thoroughly enjoyable. Check it out!DVD Review: Check this one out.
Summary: 4 Stars
A star-studded cast each of which doing an excellent job with their role. This is essentially a caper movie, and although some of it is dated, since it deals with technology, the story itself is strong and extremely enjoyable. I won't tell you what it is about, because you can get that from anywhere, what I will tell you is the movie is certainly worth adding to your collection. It's serious when it needs to be, funny when it needs to be, and immersive throughout.DVD Review: sneakers
Summary: 5 Stars
Sneakers just cracks me up. I got this movie for my brother's birthday because we both enjoy the whole idea of the Sneakers movie...I laugh at the same scenes every single time. When they all take a turn dancing with Liz, it makes me laugh out loud and Whistler driving the van at the end? This is the best part. I have always enjoyed Robert Redford's movies, and the ensemble cast just made it even more perfect. Too bad River Phoenix died so young.
Description of Sneakers
This enjoyable thriller, written and directed by Phil Alden Robinson (the screenwriter of Field of Dreams), follows a raggedy group of corporate security experts who get in over their heads when they accept an assignment poaching some hot hardware for the National Security Agency. Robert Redford plays the group's guru, an aging techno-anarchist who has been hiding from the feds since the early 1970s; his companionable gang of freaks includes Dan Aykroyd, David Strathairn, Mary McDonnell, the late River Phoenix, and Sidney Poitier, as a veteran CIA operative turned "sneaker." The technological black box that everybody is after, an array of computer chips that can decode any encrypted message, isn't a very plausible invention, but it's a serviceable McGuffin, and the megalomania of the master plotter played by Ben Kingsley has more resonance than most. Modest inferences can be drawn about the very latest high-tech threats to civil liberties. --David ChuteGeneral DVDs
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