Sneakers (1992)

Very disappointed :(

Nice effects though.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

I can watch this movie any time, and I have. It's now 2018, and it's just as enjoyable as it was when released. Suspense. Intrigue. Humor. Doesn't hurt that it features some of my favorite actors. Love this movie. I own it, so I can watch it any time. But there's something great about finding it on a channel when you weren't expecting it. Watch it again? Sure.

All-star cast, but so-so script and direction.Plot sounded interesting enough - civilians get hired by the NSA to hack the research of a potential Russian scientist. However, almost from the start it lacks focus. Too many silly scenes and dialogue.Throw in a plot that isn't entirely watertight, or plausible, and things go off course pretty quickly. Direction is far from solid, too. Things don't always make sense, or follow properly.It has its moments though. The game of high-stakes espionage was interesting at times.All-star cast mostly give solid performances. However, Ben Kingsley is badly miscast as the bad guy. The role seemed so beneath him, especially as he gets to be a stereotypical Bond-type villain, and has to put on a fake, barely believable, New York accent.

I like this movie as it is about people getting into places where they are not supposed to. It begins with two friends breaking into secure computer systems and transferring funds to other organisations, but they are found out: one, Cosmo (Ben Kingsley) is arrested and the other, Martin Bishop (Robert Redford) escapes. The movie then moves into the present to where Bishop has become a man who breaks into corporations to test their security system.The movie focuses on a security team who are blackmailed into stealing a black box which turns out to be a code breaker. The team consists of Donald Crease (Sidney Poitier) who is an ex-CIA agent, "Mother" (Dan Akroyd) who seems to love his conspiracy theories, Whistler (David Strathairn), a blind computer programmer, Carl Arborgast (River Pheonix), a kid who is brilliant at hacking, and Liz (Mary McDonald) who is not really part of the team, and doesn't really want to be a part of the team, but Bishop was able to charm her into helping them out.I am not at all familiar with Robert Redford so this is the first movie that I have seen that he is in. Still, I think he is a reasonably good actor and Bishop was reasonably good character. Bishop is not unique though because he is seen as an "always will win" character. Cosmo constantly refers to how Bishop always wins and really this is what the conflict is based about. It is not essentially a save the world flick, but the continuation of a quarrel between two friends.Further more, there seems to be discussion between Bishop and Cosmo about changing the world. When they were young, they were idealistic and believed they could do anything. Now that they are older, Bishop sees that you can't change anything, while Cosmo still believes he can. It also shows how lonely Cosmo really is in the position he has come to. He is powerful and he has money, but he is alone. It is not that he has a code breaker and can hack any computer in America, rather it is that he wants his friend with him.I thought all of the characters came out well, especially in the final scene where their quirky personalities really had a bit of a play with the government. The movie is fun and I enjoyed it.

If you don't like the human aspects of the movie which is about people who break into systems, move on. I picked this film up on VCR tape with no idea what it was about from a good-will store for $0.75. I consider the price the rental fee and normally take most of the films back so they can resell them and make more money. I kept this one for a few more viewings since it caught the ambivalent spirit of that post cold-war era and have watched it several times. Whistler is patterned after a blind guy that was in on the phone phreaking phenomenon in the 1970s. His real name was Josef Carl Engressia Jr. He was known as Joybubbles. Rather than using the whistle in the Captain Crunch cereals (started by John Draper, alias Captain Crunch) or like some later people who used the blue box he was able to do it all with his own whistling and had perfect pitch. The end of the 60s is really stretching when the kind of breaking in they were doing would have put Cosmo in prison. It really didn't start until the late 70s and early 80s in a significant way. But the DES encryption which would be about the best they had in 1992 was getting long in tooth. DES was created in the 70s with everything finalized around 1977. 3DES and Blowfish encryption algorithms didn't occur until the end of the 90s. So dedicated hardware to break DES was in the realm of possibility. I have news for you people. The breaking of this encryption is not going to be done by Windows machines. It would have to be done with specialized hardware and may not be in the realm of possibility now or then. But your chances for breaking DES in 1995-97 with dedicated hardware would be excellent. But that just shows that there is a lot of bragging among these crackers to con you into believing they are a lot smarter and more able than they really are. Most of the rest of the technical stuff was also stretching it quite a bit. But it was humorous to see these "brilliant" people not knowing what was happening for a good portion of the movie. They bring it to a humorous close at the end. Is Tahiti in Europe? All I want is a phone number. The movie is worth watching a few times. But for somebody who knows that the recent crack (which does not mean broken) of AES-256 has actually made it and AES-192 symmetric encryption more vulnerable than AES-128 I have to tell you to take all of the technical aspects with a grain of salt. How is it possible that a smaller block size equates to more security? They are stretching it to what they claim they can do, not to what they are really able to do. But aren't most movies a lot of make believe?