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When Internet began to spread in 1990s, most of American society was initially clueless and completely baffled with the new phenomenon. Hollywood nevertheless tried to exploit the novelty with the series of mostly weak and forgettable techno-thriller. One of relatively successful was *Sneakers*, 1992 film directed by Phil Alden Robinson.


Protagonist, played by Robert Redford, is Martin Brice, former left wing radical student who in late 1960s used to employ nascent technology of electronic communications to redirect funds from Republican Party to Black Panthers and similar organisations. Those activities forced him to spend much of the life on the run, but he nevertheless managed to build new identity under name “Martin Bishop” and earns living legitimately, as leader of “sneakers”, elite team of computer hackers and other experts who are hired by private companies to test their security. Bishop, who operates in San Francisco, doesn’t want to work for the government but he finally gets blackmailed by NSA agents who want him to use his skills to steal “black box”, device developed by brilliant mathematician Dr. Gunter Janek (played by Donal Logue). When the team does, it discovers that the device is capable of breaking any code in the world, giving to its owner almost absolute power over all information. Bishop very reluctantly gives the box to NSA, only to learn that Janek was murdered and that the NSA agents weren’t NSA at all. Bishop, faced with blackmail and possible murder charges, now has to use all of his skills to track device and steal it again, and his quest is complicated with arrival of Cosmo (played by Ben Kingsley), his old friend from the radical days.


Script was co-written by Robinson, Walter Parkes and Lawrence Lasker (best known for similarly themed but much better *[WarGames](https://peakd.com/hive-166847/@drax/film-review-wargames-1983)*). It tries very much to be relevant to its time, most notably in depicting emerging post-Cold War world, but it still shows Hollywood confusion and doesn’t properly answer whether Russians and Americans can be friends after all or whether they are doomed to continue playing spy games on each other. However, the real period this film actually belongs, at if we judge it by script motives and general atmosphere, is 1970s. Main reason is Robert Redford, the most popular star of decade and *Sneakers* in many ways exploits his charismatic presence to evoke memories of classics he had starred in, whether caper comedy *The Sting* or spy thriller *[Three Days of the Condor](https://peakd.com/film/@drax/retro-film-review-three-days-of-the-condor-1975)*. Film, just like most of those from two decades earlier, wears anti-establishment views and left-wing policies on its sleeve, showing cynical and mistrustful attitudes to US government and large corporations. Serious political content is, on the other hand, slightly moderated with usually weak attempts of comedy, most of them thanks to Dan Aykroyd who plays conspiracy-obsessed part of Bishop’s team. Rest of the cast is mostly solid and David Strathairn is great as blind audio specialist. Mary McDonnell does well in thankless role of protagonist’s girlfriend, while River Phoenix is wasted in the role of teenage wunderkind, obviously cast mostly because of his looks and popularity among young demographics instead of ability to convincingly portray a hacker. Robinson nevertheless directs film relatively well and film features few interesting action scenes, although the pace could have been better. The major plot twist, that appears near the half of the film, isn’t too convincing and looks a little bit like content of soap opera. The most disappointing thing about *Sneakers*, at least from today’s perspective, is optimistic and naive view how the Internet could be able to change the world for the better and how government agencies like NSA won’t be able to spy on American citizens. Now we know better and this is the reason why this film could be best recommended to those who are fans of Redford or nostalgic towards early 1990s. 



RATING:  5/10 (++)




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