F-0191

Title:

Sneakers

Category:

S

Produced:

1992

Country:

USA

Released:

Film: Sep 1992 (USA)
DVD: Mar 1998; Dec 2004; Jun 2007 (HD)
VHS: Jan 1995
Soundtrack: Sep 1992 (CD)

Director:

Phil Alden Robinson

Writer:

Phil Alden Robinson; Lawrence Lasker; Walter F. Parkes

Actors:

Jo Marr (College-Aged Cosmo - as Jojo Marr); Gary Hershberger (College-Aged Bishop); Robert Redford (Martin 'Marty' Bishop); Sidney Poitier (Donald Crease); David Strathairn (Erwin 'Whistler' Emory); Dan Aykroyd (Mother); River Phoenix (Carl Arbegast); Bodhi Elfman (Centurion S&L Night Guard); Denise Dowse (Bank Teller); Hanyee (Bank Secretary); Timothy Busfield (Dick Gordon); Eddie Jones (Buddy Wallace); Time Winters (Homeless Man); Mary McDonnell (Liz); Jun Asai (Piano Prodigy)

Description:

Martin Bishop is the head of a group of experts who specialise in testing security systems. When he is blackmailed by Government agents into stealing a top secret black box, the team find themselves embroiled in a game of danger and intrigue. After they recover the box, they discover that it has the capability to decode all existing encryption systems around the world, and that the agents who hired them didn't work for the Government after all... (Graeme Roy)

A group of security analysts are offered a job by the CIA and when they are reluctant, pressure is brought to bear by the threat to disclose the identity of their leader, a 60s radical with outstanding warrants. A chip exists that will allow any computer to be cracked, and organized crime will soon control it, though sudden changes in their police records suggest that it is already operational. (John Vogel)

Robert Redford leads an all-star cast in one of the most satisfying suspense films! Computer expert Martin Bishop (Redford) heads a team of renegade hackers - including a former CIA employee (Sidney Poitier), a gadgets wizard (Dan Aykroyd), a young genius (River Phoenix) and a blind soundman (David Strathairn) - who are routinely hired to test security systems. But Bishop's past comes back to haunt him when government agents blackmail the "sneakers" into carrying out a covert operation: tracking down an elusive black box. Along with his former girlfriend (Mary McDonnell), Bishop's team retrieves the box and makes a stunning discovery - the device can break into any computer system in the world. With factions from all sides willing to kill for the powerful box, Bishop and his team embark on their most dangerous assignment ever in this exhilarating high-tech caper from Phil Alden Robinson (Field of Dreams). (Amazon.com)

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 Chute, Amazon.com)

Language:

English

TT:

126 min (fil, DVD) / 118 min (Ontario, Canada) / 125 min (DVD, VHS)

J.S. Bach's Music:

Concerto for violin, strings & continuo No. 2 in E major, BWV 1042
Courtesy of Laser Light Digital, by Arrangement with Sounds of Film

Format:

Film: Color (DeLuxe)
DVD: (Anamorphic, NTSC, Region 1) | (AC-3, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, Subtitled, Widescreen, Region 1) | (Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Collector's Edition, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC, Region 1) | (Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Widescreen, NTSC, Region 1) | (NSTC, Region 2) | (PAL, Region 2) | (Anamorphic, Full Screen, NTSC, Region 2))
VHS: (PAL) | (Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC)
Video Download: Universal Studios
Soundtrack: CD

Company:

Film: Universal Pictures
DVD: Uni Distribution; Universal Studios
VHS: Universal Studios
Soundtrack: Sony

Comments:

Watch selections:

Buy movie at:

DVD: Amazon.com | Amazon.com [HD] | Amazon.com | Amazon.com | Amazon.com [Region 2] | Amazon.com [Region 2] | Amazon.com [Region 2]
VHS: Amazon.com [PAL] | Amazon.com | Amazon.com [PAL]
Video Download: Amazon.com [Rent] | Amazon.com [Buy]
Soundtrack: Amazon.com [CD]

Source/Links: IMDB
Contributor: Aryeh Oron (November 2007)