In the fall of 1992, the
writers of WarGames, the director of Field of Dreams, and an
incredible ensemble cast created an irresistible combination of suspense,
adventure, and comedy. Sneakers tells the story of Martin Bishop, who,
as a student in the late ‘60s, dabbled in proto-hacking and political prankery
just enough to attract the attention of the police, which triggered him to go
underground to avoid capture. To make a living Bishop assembles an unlikely
team of highly skilled individuals with similar histories with law enforcement
to help him test security systems of Bay Area businesses and organizations.
Bishop and his team start working for a mysterious new client who throws them
into the middle of a conspiracy to possess a technology that threatens to
destroy the ability to keep any information secret.
Director Phil Alden
Robinson guides the extraordinary cast through an expertly paced adventure
based on Lawrence Lasker and Walter F. Parkes’ sharp script, which is enriched
with details drawn from the worlds of information technology, hacking, and
espionage. Although Lasker and Parkes mined very similar territory in 1983 with
their novel Cold War tale WarGames, they create a very prescient
depiction of the new geopolitical realities forming after the Cold War. Two movie
stars from the ‘60s and ‘70s - Robert Redford and Sidney Poitier - anchor the
cast with nuanced portrayals of aging men devoted to a hazardous but rewarding
line of work. Redford delivers his most appealing and relaxed mid-to-late
career work as Martin Bishop, a man haunted as much by his past as by his
potential. In the role of retired CIA operative Donald Crease, Poitier supplies
a sobering intensity and a meticulous sense of awareness as the risk level
escalates for Bishop and his colleagues. Dan Aykroyd and River Phoenix, who
both racked up individual box office successes in the years leading up to this
movie, contribute their notable talents to a movie that demands a company of
great actors with shared chemistry. The role of Mother, a conspiracy theory-obsessed
burglar, remains the most appealing and least broadly comic role of Aykroyd’s
career. Phoenix brings a highly internal and sweetly awkward nature to Carl,
the nineteen year-old computer prodigy and newest member of Bishop’s team. Mary
McDonnell and David Strathairn, who established their careers working
frequently with director John Sayles, stretch the cast outside of conventional
Hollywood norms of the time with skills honed in smaller, independent films.
McDonnell, tasked with the unfortunate responsibility of playing the movie’s lone
principal female character Liz, injects an irreverent, brainy independence into
what could have been a two-dimensional part. Strathairn’s portrayal of Whistler
ranks as one of the most accurate, well-rounded, and compassionate on-screen
representations of a person with a disability by an able-bodied person. Two
great actors known for their range and gravitas, James Earl Jones and Ben
Kingsley, round out the cast with crucial supporting roles that heighten the
sense of danger, but still allow both of them to get in on the fun everyone
else is having.
With Sneakers,
the filmmakers create a world in which Bishop and his team have believable
pasts while a streak of playful energy balances the deadly consequences at
stake. Sure, this movie is susceptible to the kind of inconsistencies common to
many Hollywood films, but Sneakers feels far more grounded than most
espionage adventure films of the last twenty-five years. Also, it’s hard not to
love a film that contains both a game of Scrabble that is pivotal to the plot
and a brief, joyful dance sequence that develops the characters!
-
John
Parsell
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