by David C. Terr

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Title: Sneakers

Director: Phil Alden Robinson

Starring: Robert Redford, Dan Aykroyd, Ben Kingsley, Marry McDonnell, River Phoenix, Sidney Poitier, David Strathairn

Release Date: Sept. 9, 1992

Running Time: 126 min

Genres: Action, Adventure, Comedy, Crime, Drama, Mystery, Thriller

Commentary
Sneakers is a very entertaining and suspenseful spy film about a group of computer hackers who obtain the ultimate codebreaking machine. Sneakers has all the action and suspense of a James Bond or Alfred Hitchcock film, keeping you alert until the end.

Plot Summary
Sneakers concerns a group of professional hackers led by Martin Bishop (Redford). One day, Martin gets a visit from two men who claim to belong to the NSA. They want him and his gang to retrieve a mysterious "black box", which they claim to have its research funded by Russia. The hackers manage to steal the box from mathematician Gunter Janek. Later they discover that this black box is the ultimate codebreaker, capable of breaking any secret code in the world, and thus bypassing all computer security systems. Now they know they're onto something very dangerous.

The following day, Martin gets kidnapped and taken to a secret location, which turns out to be run by his old college friend Cosmo (Kingsley), who'd since turned to crime. Cosmo wants Martin to cooperate with him. When Martin refuses, Cosmo threatens to have him sent to prison by revealing his true identity, which he'd kept hidden. With some effort, the team manages to find Cosmo's secret location and retrieve his black box. Once they have it, the government learns they do, whence the team bargains with them. In reality, they keep it though.

Cultural Significance
Being a mathematician who's studied cryptography, I can see lots of potential truth behind the story. Computer security systems do rely on mathematics, as stated in the film, and the right mathematical formulae or algorithms could potentially jeopardize these systems. For instance, much research is currently being conducted in quantum computers, and some very simple ones consisting of just a few molecules have already been built. If these ever become advanced enough, they might jeopardize the RSA encryption scheme, which is the most widely-used security system today. This would require developing new security systems, which interestingly would probably also arise from quantum computing.

Here's the original movie trailer.