I was drawn to Sneakers because I heard the story was of my favorite genre, a spy thriller. However, I found this movie to be more along the lines of a caper film.

Robert Redford is the leader of a team of experts who break into security systems so that institutions (such as banks) can see how good their system is. The team is made up of a diverse group: an ex-Cia agent (Portier) and three computer whizzes (Ackroyd, Phoenix, and the blind Stratharn). The group has great chemistry and often this leads to some fun humor.

Redford and his team are hired by the government (so they believe) to retrieve a black box that can decode encrypted computer firewalls. After retrieving the black box, the team finds themselves in dire trouble.

I was hoping the film would be more intense, yet Sneakers incorporates a lot of humor. It is a fun film and is enjoyable to watch, but if you are looking for a true spy film, then you may want to pass.

This film more closely resembles recent movies like Ocean's 11 or The Italian Job, popcorn films that have some laughs, some danger, and some suspense.

Redford is really great in this movie as is Straitarn; Mary McDonnell is also very good. Phoenix holds his own. Although far from their best roles, Poitier, James Earl Jones, Ackroyd, and Ben Kingsley are decent.

Overall an enjoyable film which incorporates computer hacking before it was mainstream. Rating 7 of 10 stars.

After the failure of the movie Havana. Robert Redford wanted to reestablish his leading man credentials in Sneakers.

A hi tech caper with an all star cast. All the leading actors are Oscar winners or nominees.

Redford plays Bishop a former 60s radical who now leads a ragtag of misfits who breaks into installations in order to tell them how easy it is.

Redford past catches up with him when two people from the NSA claim to know who he really is and want him to steal a black box, a decoder. The McGuffin which puts the team in danger and puts him in a collision course with his past.

This is a slick comedy thriller, it catches the unhappiness with the then Republican presidency of George H Bush and there are a few jokes aimed at the GOP.

There are scenes involving a blind man driving a truck, figuring which San Francisco bridge that Bishop crossed based on the sound of the road and an attempt to steal the box where you have to move very slowly.

There are nods to Redford's previous films such as The Hot Rock, Three Days of the Condor and The Sting.

A college prank where one got caught and sent to prison and the other didn't forms the basis for Sneakers, a stylish, but ultimately unsatisfying thriller. Sad because it's a waste of a really talented cast.

Gary Hershberger and Jo Marr area a couple of college age computer geeks from the seventies who if they had stayed on the straight and narrow might have wound up being Bill Gates and Bill Jobs. Marr got caught and Hershberger was not by dint of going out for pizza during a break-in. Marr got some serious jail time, but Hershberger became a fugitive.

Fast forward to the nineties and Hershberger has now grown up to be Robert Redford and heading a security firm under an alias. Redford employs the diverse talents of David Strathairn, Sidney Poitier, Dan Ackroyd, River Phoenix and on occasion Mary McDonnell. They break into unbreakable places and tell you what you're doing wrong.

Redford and his crew get hired or possibly a better word is drafted into working for a couple of slippery agents played by Timothy Busfield and Eddie Jones. Object is to steal a code box with a formula designed by super mathematical genius Donal Logue. In it Logue's designed a gizmo that can break ANY code.

Before long Redford and his crew are in conflict with his former college prankster now all grownup and played by Ben Kingsley. Who wouldn't want the Ultimate Codebreaker? Even I'd like to have that.

Sneakers is done with a lot of flash and style, but in the end it's all rather silly. A real waste of a good cast. You've got to catch at the very end where on a news broadcast it's said that Republican National Committee has gone broke overnight and Greenpeace is overflowing with money for its good work.

Now maybe that's Robert Redford's secret fantasy, but this isn't Never-Never Land.