Sneakers, 1992.
Directed by Phil Alden Robinson.
Starring Robert Redford, Dan Aykroyd, Ben Kingsley, Mary McDonnell, River Phoenix, Sidney Poitier, and David Strathairn.
SYNOPSIS:
Sneakers makes its 4K Ultra HD debut and comes out on Blu-ray again in a new edition that features a new 4K scan of the film and the same batch of extras found before. However, my understanding is that one of the commentary tracks wasn’t found on the last Blu-ray release, so this one might be worth a double-dip for those who picked up the previous edition.
There’s a great bit of dialogue toward the end of Sneakers. Cosmo (Ben Kingsley) is talking to his old friend Martin (Robert Redford) and explains: “The world isn’t run by weapons anymore, or energy, or money. It’s run by little ones and zeroes, little bits of data. It’s all just electrons.”
He also points out: “It’s about who controls the information. What we see and hear, how we work, what we think… it’s all about the information!”
Remember, this is a movie that was released in 1992. The world wide web, as it was known in the 90s, was still in its very early days under the guidance of creator Tim Bermers-Lee. The advent of social media was still nearly a decade away.
So how prescient is that quote today? We’re in an era of unprecedented amounts of misinformation and fake images and videos, with a healthy dash of AI hallucinations tossed in for good measure. It’s not hard to see that Trump was elected President twice while riding that wave of insanity.
That’s what makes Phil Alden Robinson’s Sneakers (with screenwriting help from Lawrence Lasker and Walter Parkes) worth revisiting, 33 years after its initial release, in this new Blu-ray edition from Kino Lorber.
Redford’s character was once known as Martin Bishop and now operates under the name Martin Brice. In 1969, he was friends with Cosmo, who was arrested after a hacking attempt by the pair went awry. He was able to escape and was under the impression during the decades since then that his buddy had died in prison.
Martin is in charge of a team of so-called “sneakers” who test computer systems by trying to hack them: former CIA agent Donald Crease (Sidney Poitier), technician and “the truth is out there” conspiracy theorist” Darren “Mother” Roskow (Dan Akroyd), young hacker Carl Arbogast (River Phoenix), and blind phone “phreak” Irwin “Whistler” Emery (David Strathairn).
When a pair of supposed NSA (National Security Agency) agents use the truth about Martin’s past to force him to use his team to a Russian-funded black box before it falls into the hands of the enemy, Martin finds himself on a collision course with his past. Joining him in the adventure is his ex-girlfriend, Liz (Mary McDonnell), who shares his techie inclinations.
Sneakers is a fun ride that might seem dated on first glance but was really ahead of its time, as I noted in the beginning. “It’s all about the information?” is a sentiment that’s even more relevant today.
Kino Lorber commissioned a new 4K scan of the film for this edition, which is available on Blu-ray and 4K Ultra HD. I received the former for this review and it looked great on my mid-range setup. I’m sure the 4K Ultra HD platter is just as nice.
In terms of bonus features, nothing new was created for this release, but my understanding is that the commentary track with Phil Alden Robinson and screenwriters Lawrence Lasker and Walter F. Parkes was MIA from the last high-def edition of the film.
I recently listened to Lasker and Parkes’ commentary with John Badham for WarGames, which is full of great information, and the one found here with Robinson is along the same lines. I always appreciate it when screenwriters get to join commentary tracks, since they have a lot of good insight to share about the development of the film and what may have changed on the way to the screen.
The other commentary features Robinson and director of photography John Lindley chatting over the movie. While you can view the first commentary as a strategy session, this one is more tactical, diving into the execution of the script during filming and the various obstacles that came up along the way.
The final extra is the 40-minute The Making of Sneakers, which starts with a deep dive into the writing of the screenplay. Mathematics professor Len Adelman, who served as a consultant on the movie, appears with his thoughts, as does John Draper, the guy who pioneered what was known as “phone phreaking” when he figured out how to imitate the noises that enabled free phone calls at pay phones. He later discovered that the blue whistle found in Cap’n Crunch cereal served the same purpose.
The other half of the documentary digs into the story and characters that came out of all that development work. When you combine it with the commentary tracks, you get a nice, comprehensive overview of the film. Sure, it would be fun to see a new featurette that talks about Sneakers in the context of modern technology, or maybe some deleted scenes, but those are small quibbles here.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★
Brad Cook
