Sneakers

Robert Redford plays a 60s radical hired to penetrate and test security systems with an eccentric team of expertsincluding a CIA veteran (Sidney Poitier), a computer whiz (River Phoenix), a gadget man (Dan Aykroyd), and a blind audio expert (David Strathairn). Forced to participate in a covert operation, they wind up enlisting the hero’s former girlfriend (Mary McDonnell) and matching wits with a friend of his from college (Ben Kingsley). It’s questionable whether this 1992 caper movie and thriller by Field of Dreams director Phil Alden Robinson (with help from producers Lawrence Lasker and Walter F. Parkes, who collaborated with Robinson on the script) is art, but it’s certainly well-crafted entertainment on a very high level, full of humor and character and with nice election-year running gags. Recommended. 125 min. (JR)

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