Sneakers (1992 film)

Sneakers
film poster for Sneakers
Directed by	Phil Alden Robinson
Written by	Phil Alden Robinson Lawrence Lasker Walter F. Parkes
Produced by	Lawrence Lasker Walter F. Parkes
Starring	Robert Redford Dan Aykroyd Ben Kingsley Mary McDonnell River Phoenix Sidney Poitier David Strathairn James Earl Jones
Cinematography	John Lindley
Edited by	Tom Rolf
Music by	James Horner
Distributed by	Universal Studios
Release date	September 9, 1992 (USA)
Running time	126 min.
Language	English
Box office	$105,232,691(Worldwide)

Sneakers is a 1992 caper film directed by Phil Alden Robinson, written by Robinson, Walter F. Parkes and Lawrence Lasker and starring Robert Redford, Dan Aykroyd, Ben Kingsley, Mary McDonnell, River Phoenix, Sidney Poitier and David Strathairn. It was filmed in late 1991 and released in 1992.

Cast

• Robert Redford as Martin Bishop/Martin Brice
• Ben Kingsley as Cosmo
• Sidney Poitier as Donald Crease
• David Strathairn as Erwin 'Whistler' Emory
• Dan Aykroyd as Darryl 'Mother' Roskow
• River Phoenix as Carl Arbogast
• Mary McDonnell as Liz
• Stephen Tobolowsky as Werner Brandes
• Timothy Busfield as Dick Gordon
• Eddie Jones as Buddy Wallace
• Donal Logue as Dr. Gunter Janek
• Lee Garlington as Dr. Elena Rhyzkov
• James Earl Jones as NSA Agent Bernard Abbott

Plot

The movie begins in 1969. A young Martin Brice (Robert Redford) and his friend Cosmo (Ben Kingsley) have broken into the university's computer and are gleefully playing pranks by hacking into other computer networks. Martin leaves for pizza but while starting his van is shocked to see police cars pull up to the building. Although tempted to return for Cosmo, he ultimately leaves, abandoning Cosmo to his fate.

Twenty years later, Martin runs a tiger team of "security specialists" that use unorthodox methods of testing physical and electronic security for companies in San Francisco. The team includes Donald Crease (Sidney Poitier), a former CIA agent and a high-strung family man; "Mother" (Dan Aykroyd), a conspiracy theorist with unsurpassed technical skills and dexterity; Carl Arbogast (River Phoenix), a young genius; and Erwin 'Whistler' Emory (David Strathairn), a blind man with superb hearing. One day, Martin is approached by two National Security Agency agents, Dick Gordon and Buddy Wallace (Timothy Busfield, Eddie Jones), who reveal they are aware of Martin's former life. In exchange for overlooking his past, as well as a sizeable cash payment, they ask Martin to recover a "black box" decoder device that mathematician Gunter Janek (Donal Logue) has been developing for the Russian government under the guise of a company called "Setec Astronomy" - one that the NSA can't even find, let alone steal or duplicate. Martin's team, along with the help of his former girlfriend, Liz (Mary McDonnell), are ultimately successful in locating and retrieving the box, which was disguised as an answering machine on Janek's desk.

As the team celebrates, Whistler becomes curious as to the box's function and begins to examine it with the help of Mother. They learn that the box contains an advanced algorithm that can essentially break any encryption code, a theory they prove by using it to break into the computer systems of the FFA, national power grid, and other heavily fortified networks. At the same time, Martin & Liz, along with Crease and his wife, figure out while playing Scrabble that an anagram of "Setec Astronomy" is "Too many secrets". Quickly realizing that any government in the world would kill to possess the box, Crease orders a lockdown of the building until they can return the device to the NSA agents the next day. When Martin and Donald meet the agents to exchange the device, Donald discovers that Janek was murdered, and interrupts the exchange. The two flee the scene, but Martin has already given the box to the men (who it is hinted were going to kill Martin if not for the interruption). The team soon learns that Gordon and Wallace were never NSA agents, and that Janek himself was working on the box for the NSA. Martin turns to a friend from the Russian consul, Gregor, who is able to identify Gordon and Wallace as rogue agents. Before Gregor can reveal who they are working for, his limo is pulled over by fake FBI agents, who murder Gregor and frame Martin for it, then kidnap him.

Martin awakes in an unknown location to find his aged friend Cosmo alive and well. Cosmo, bitter over being abandoned by Martin, reveals that he developed ties with an organized crime family while incarcerated, using his hacking skills for their benefit, and was thus able to escape prison and become quite wealthy. He goes on to reveal that he is behind the fake agents, and that he wants the box so that he can destabilize the world's economy, thus bringing about total anarchy. Cosmo offers Martin the chance to work with him towards this end, but Martin refuses. Cosmo, in turn, uses the black box to break into the FBI databases and connect Martin's current alias with his real name, then has his men dump Martin in the city. Now forced to avoid the police, Martin reunites with his crew and has them relocate to Liz' apartment. There, they call the NSA using complex call routing to prevent tracing and offer to recover the box in exchange for amnesty. While discussing the situation with NSA supervisor Bernard Abbott (James Earl Jones), they become suspicious and hang up, deciding instead to recapture the box for leverage. With Whistler's help, Martin is able to recreate the route during his kidnapping to a toy company, which is really a front for Cosmo. The team identifies Cosmo's office, its security features, and the route to enter it, through the neighboring office of Werner Brandes (Stephen Tobolowsky). To obtain the necessary vocal passkeys, the team convinces Liz to go on a rigged computer date with Brandes.

Though most of the plan proceeds without a hitch, Brandes becomes suspect of Liz' actions, and brings her to Cosmo, who seems ready to ignore Brandes' story. However, when Liz mentions the computer date, Cosmo believes Martin is at work, and locks down the facility, trapping the team, and discovers the box missing. Cosmo tracks Martin to the building's rooftop where the rest of the team is escaping, and demands the box at gunpoint. Martin reluctantly hands over the box, and departs with the rest of the team, but they are long gone before Cosmo discovers that Martin has given him simply the outer shell of the box. When Martin and his team return to their offices the next day, they are surrounded by NSA agents led by Abott. Martin then realizes that the box will only work on American encryption codes, and that the NSA wants it in order to spy on other U.S. agencies. Before Martin hands over the box, he asks that his record be cleared, which the director agrees to. Martin prompts the other team members to realize that the NSA will yield to any request to get the box, and they each request own personal desires, with Abbott ultimately unable to refuse. The box is handed over, but after the agents leave, Martin reveals he took out the key processor from the device that contains the critical algorithm, rendering it useless. He speculates that the NSA will waste their time attempting to figure out why the box doesn't work, before eventually concluding that it never did.

The last scene is a television news report: the reporter announces that the Republican National Committee has misplaced its funds and entered bankruptcy, while, simultaneously, Amnesty International, Greenpeace, and The United Negro College Fund are seeing record earnings, "due mostly to large, anonymous donations."

Gross

Domestic	Foreign	Worldwide Total
$51,432,691	$53,800,000	$105,232,691

Trivia

According to the filmmakers' DVD commentary,

• "Setec Astronomy" was a real program the NSA was funding at the time of filming.
• The final scene was re-shot for "about seven dollars," re-involving WRGB news anchor Ernie Tetrault from earlier in the film, who had reported on Bishop's friend Greg and mathematician Janek's deaths. After writer Walter Parkes faxed over the monologue, Tetrault filmed the closing sequence after the local 11 o'clock news that night and sent it back to the filmmaker.
• The character of Whistler, a blind hacker, is based on the real life man Joe Engressia, known as Joybubbles. Engressia, though blind, had perfect pitch and discovered a way to make free phone calls by whistling into the receiver in imitation of a telephones dial tones.

External links

• Score-Review
• Sneakers at IMDb
• Sneakers at Box Office Mojo
• Sneakers at AllMovie
• Sneakers at Rotten Tomatoes
• Leonard Adleman's recollections of Sneakers
• chapter on Sneakers from Condensed Cyberpunk Cinema Classics (1981-2001)