How Sneakers Aged Better than Almost All Computer Thrillers
Have you noticed how fast technology can age a movie? Those fashionable phones look like comic props in just a few short years. It’s not surprising, then, that most “computer” movies are almost instantly groan inducing.
Paste is making a strong case to re-watch 1992’s Sneakers. A thoughtful retrospective on the techno-heist-thriller.
That caper involves Bishop and his group getting hired by the NSA to retrieve a black box, only to realize they’ve actually handed it over to Cosmo (Ben Kingsley, doing what can only be described as some kind of an accent), an old college friend of Bishop from his radical days. Cosmo has his sights on the box’s ability to universally decrypt any computer system, though his plan for world destruction seems oddly low-key: He tells Bishop about his intention to crash the world’s financial systems, then frames him for murder and has him tossed back on the street. (No real rush on this revolution, it seems.) The team then makes a deal with the actual NSA to retrieve the box in order to clear Bishop’s name. There’s a kind of generic, default faith in the U.S. government to do, if not exactly the right thing, nothing so evil as Cosmo’s dastardly plan to create economic equality.
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I did really enjoy this movie, though I somehow managed to not see it until it was at least 10-15 years old.