Sneakers is one of the few hacking-related movies that I can really enjoy, because it doesn't come off as pretentious the way that others do (to me, at least).
It was unapologetically nerdy; it doesn't try to "be cooler than it is". The filmmakers didn't feel compelled to include a scene filmed in a nightclub (like Swordfish or all 3 Matrix movies). They didn't feel compelled to gussy up their characters in absurd costumes (like Hackers or, again, all 3 Matrix movies). The plot and the characters were interesting enough on their own.
The result was that I never felt like they were talking down to me or pandering to me. As a side benefit, I'd argue that Sneakers has aged much better than other hacker movies have.
They had an advantage because the movie is mostly about social engineering (which requires acting), and less about actual hacking (computer screens and such which are less exciting to watch on a silver screen).
The pandering comment is funny to me though, because every single Robert Redford character has the same humblesmug, morally superior talk-down-while-encouraging-his-students "cool professor" vibe to me.
The other factor is that the central plot element (not really a spoiler here) involves a system for finding prime factors of large numbers which, 20 years later, would still be ground-breaking technology and would almost certainly have several 3 letter agencies chasing after you.
I studied computer science at the University of Washington in the mid 90s. One of my professors there would tell a story about how Adleman was notorious for answering email days or weeks later, but one time he sent him an email asking a question about the movie and got a response five minutes later.
There's a decidedly cheesy B movie call The Travelling Salesman about a crew of computer scientists who prove P=NP and sit around a conference table trying to decide what to do with the proof. It's fairly accurate without ever actually trying to posit what the proof looks like.
Given our current understanding of mathematics and physics, it is much more plausible that a mathematician (or small team) could achieve a breakthrough advance in prime factorization than that an inventor (or small team) could achieve time travel or an FTL drive. Plausibility is not essential in speculative fiction, but it improves the sense of being grounded, and tends to make ideas age better.
There's a Korean movie from a few years back called The Host. They have an all-time great hacking scene. Guy calls his friend who works for the phone company to get him in the office then they scour the desks in the evening for anyone who wrote their password on a post-it.
> It was unapologetically nerdy; it doesn't try to "be cooler than it is".
Who didn't have a screensaver of the Matrix glyph waterfall? What action movie/cartoon/video game hasn't copied or given an homage to Gaeta's take on bullet time? Who here on HN can't pull up a mental image of Trinity's acrobatic kick or the sound of Smith's voice?
To top it off, all of those things I just mention happen in the first six minutes of movie. If you're seriously going to claim you weren't all in the moment Trinity inexplicably races toward a dumptruck toward a ringing phone in a phonebooth, I won't believe you without reading your galvanic response in realtime.
tl;dr: I love Sneakers, and I love Hackers, and I love The Matrix, for entirely different reasons, and I don't think your criticism is warranted.
I hear what you're saying, but I'm a completely uncool nerdy software engineer, and I *ADORE the Hackers and Matrix aesthetics.
Both are not set in the real world, remember. Hackers is a semi-idealized Generation X view of disruption and techno (technology AND music)-fueled youthful exuberance.
And the hackers in the Matrix were hackers that saw through the Matrix, and literally hacked their reality to know kung fu, gunplay, and change the world around them.
When done right (and Swordfish is a good example of when it isn't), it can be a hyper-stylized love letter to the concepts. Not all cinema needs to be "realistic" and "grounded".
> Both are not set in the real world, remember. Hackers is a semi-idealized Generation X view of disruption and techno (technology AND music)-fueled youthful exuberance.
All of the hacks in Hackers are based on the most well known hackers (and their most infamous hacks) of the time. The culture portrayed in the movie was also shockingly similar to my own experiences at the time, right down to meeting in arcades to discuss exploits, dumpster diving for passwords and modem numbers, and stealing manuals/handsets out of NYNEX vans. The FBI also acted just as cartoonishly in real life as Richard Gill did in the movie.
The hacking visuals were as cheesy as Hollywood has ever produced, but the movie will never get enough credit for being accurate to real life for young hackers of the time.
If you google "Sneakers streaming", there are several services that are streaming it for a price. There are surely other ways to watch it as well. It's definitely worth a watch. I love both (as well as The Matrix and Hackers), all for different reasons.
If you aged the cast of Mr. Robot by a couple decades so that they're middle aged, and transported them and their memories back in time to the early 1990s, and the whole crew was focused on just one hack, that's pretty much the movie Sneakers.
It was unapologetically nerdy; it doesn't try to "be cooler than it is". The filmmakers didn't feel compelled to include a scene filmed in a nightclub (like Swordfish or all 3 Matrix movies). They didn't feel compelled to gussy up their characters in absurd costumes (like Hackers or, again, all 3 Matrix movies). The plot and the characters were interesting enough on their own.
The result was that I never felt like they were talking down to me or pandering to me. As a side benefit, I'd argue that Sneakers has aged much better than other hacker movies have.