90's Watch: Sneakers (1992)

Watched:  01/08/2025

Format:  Amazon

Viewing:  First

Director:  Phil Alden Robinson

Back when Boomers went to the movies all the time, movies catered to an idea that we could do this as smooth and classy as a Kenny G concert.  Or, maybe as slick as Yanni, in a pinch.  

Sneakers (1992) is like "what if 3 Days of the Condor, but a cozy mystery?" and an entry into the field of "technology is neat, and we'll talk about it in terms your mom will get, plus we'll keep futzing with what is real and what is not" that movies love to play with, which ultimately satisfies no one.  

Written and directed by Field of Dreams director Phil Alden Robinson, it's a weirdly all-star film about a gang of pals/ private company that infiltrates banks and other high security facilities to show them their weaknesses, no matter how spycrafty and "sneaky".  I mean, a motivated thief is a motivated thief, so do figure out how to keep money from vanishing.

This is a Boomer movie, so we are legally required to go back to the late 1960's to understand that as a student, Robert Redford and his friend Cosmo were computer geniuses who hacked the planet.  Redford (played by someone younger) happens to be getting a snack when the raid occurs, so he walks away and takes a new identity.  Cosmo goes to jail where he dies behind bars.

In present-day early-90's San Francisco, Redford is now running his agency, which features Sidney Poitier for some reason, (this site's fave) David Straithairn as a blind magical being, Dan Aykroyd essentially playing himself, and River Phoenix as a prodigy/ the only one in shape enough to do physical things.

They're recruited by the NSA (Timothy Busfield and Eddie Jones) to retrieve a device from a scientist (a baby-faced Donal Logue) that will basically crack all 1990's-era digital encryption.  Along the way, we learn Redford is friends with a Russian attaché, and used to date Mary McDonnell who shows up to play "woman".

It's essentially a heist movie with a twist and a second heist.  

I think what's weird about the movie is that it both foretells what Soderbergh would do better with the Ocean's movies a decade later, and that it's a movie murdered by pacing/ editing. I know this is *just* before quick-cuts became the norm of the day,* but in this heisty/ espionage movie, there are no thrills.  Things just keep happening at a plodding pace that never screams urgency (see the Soderbergh movies).  And I can only wonder what happened in the edit suite when they realized their climax featured a 55-year-old Redford slowly walking across a room.  It's possible Mission: Impossible thought this one out slightly better.

But when I think about the beige palette of the film and the Boomer-friendly actors, this movie and its pacing reminds me of the smooth jazz the shrink I had in 6th grade played in his waiting room.  Like you can tell it's cool to a select audience, but when you heard you were going to hear jazz, you kind of wanted to hear Dexter Gordon wail. 

It also doesn't help that there are too many characters, any of which could have been the lead, so it means that no one's character is particularly fleshed out.  You have Sidney Poitier, and he gets maybe twenty lines all movie, no backstory, and doesn't do anything.  You have hot young star River Phoenix, and he only needs to be in the movie for literally one moment, so he's otherwise just hanging around. Stephen Toblowsky shows up for 15 minutes, and that's kind of fun, and he maybe is more relevant to what's happening that most of the main squad.

The technology bit is part of the era of "the video is fuzzy... ENHANCE" that, to this day, I have no idea if that was ever a thing. But that's kind of where we are.  At the time, I am sure all of this looked plausible and cool and your parents who couldn't program the VCR so it always blinked "12:00" were like "wow, neat".  

The device is a nice MacGuffin, and I don't know anything about 1990-era encryption, so I'll just let sleeping dogs lie.

(SPOILERS)

The villain of the piece turns out to be, of course, the friend we keep being told died off-screen and behind bars years ago. I don't know that his plan would actually work - to erase all electronic information about ownership of property in a semi-networked world, but it would sure be a problem.  That friend is played by Ben Kingsley doing something of a US East Coast accent.  And, as always, Kingsley is good!

I didn't hate this movie.  But I also kept wondering what the forces were that made it happen, and then what happened in post production.  Everything feels so underwritten, I have to wonder - what happened here?  Phil Alden Robinson was coming off making Field of Dreams, one of the great American films, and then we get a kind of stale heist flick.  The movie was written by the WarGames dudes (and there's a moment when I cracked wise about WarGames during the movie before I even knew that).  

I'm sure in a crowded theater, the gentle laughs the movie engenders probably felt good.  At home, I was kind of left wanting more.

Redford is also clearly 55 here, 10 years older than the script is written.  And while the man is handsome as the day is long, it's distracting to be running numbers in your head about "wait, how old is Redford?" while you're watching a movie.  But it is the tail end of Redford of leading man in these sorts of roles.

All in all, glad I finally watched it.  It's fine!  I wasn't offended or anything.  I chuckled.  

*you can read the horror in reviews of Street Fighter, which came out a couple years later, that no take is longer than a few seconds, now an industry norm.  Who knew Street Fighter would lead the way?