Sneakers is a 1992 movie starring a huge cast of brightest stars about penetrating testers hired by NSA to recover a Russian-founder black box codename “Setec Astronomy”. Things get complicated and (as it was in the 90s) full of conspiracies.
I watched this film only because it is about hackers. And let me tell you, I did not leave disappointed. We sure got some red team hacking. Computers get hacked, doors get unlocked, cameras get taped. If this is all you want - sure, Sneakers is great. All of those actions are believable, hackers are not the scum of the earth (as they tend to be in later movies) and it’s just plain cool.
What I was not expecting was a great plot! It’s clear that the task is not what it seems. It’s not X-Files level of conspiracy within conspiracy1, but we’ve sure got some rollercoaster of those. It is the 90s, so government are evil and private business is good, but even being raised on those ideas, I had a blast. Even after the evil mastermind laves the shadow, it doesn’t break anything. It may be a bit too-obvious, but what the hell. 80% of the story is great.
And the movie is simply beautiful. It has that 90s look, which can not be reproduced with modern digital effects. But the camera work is stop-on. When I pressed “play” on this hacker movie, I was not expecting such A-game.
But as the movie started to show its cast, it was obvious - this was to be a blockbuster. An Ocean’s 11 for the cyberage. Just look at the poster - Robert Redford is here! But, for me, Dan Aykroyd and David Strathairn stole each scene they were in. Aykroyd played Mother, a young hacker and conspiracy theorist (“the moon landing was fake” kind of, not “Melissa Lavigne”), and Strathairn played Whistler, a deaf phreaker2. Both played just the perfect amount of over-the-top characters - anything more, and they would be annoying. Everyone knew when to stop.
All in all: great cast, beautiful cinematography and interesting story. And the hacking isn’t brain rotting!
