Antiseptic, but fun genre-crossing pic (CAPER FILM meets MISSION IMPOSSIBLE*) from remarkably unproductive writer/director Phil Alden Robinson. With Robert Redford and a motley crew of hip security hackers (Sidney Poitier, Dan Aykroyd, River Phoenix, David Strathairn) working break-ins on big company systems to expose hidden weaknesses. But Redford’s got a weakness of his own, a hidden past as a student radical who fled to Canada, a secret which is now being used by undercover government agents to blackmail Redford (& Co.) into stealing a powerful Universal Encryption Decoder. Lots of cool ‘90s state-of-the-art computer tech (the mix of digital & analogue equipment giving off a nice retro buzz), with Ben Kingsley as Redford’s college pal turned Master-of-the-Universe villain (dig that East Coast accent) and Mary McDonnell wedged in as Redford’s helpful ‘ex.’ If only the script didn’t overdose on ‘the cutes’ (every character metaphorically winking at us) or push quite so many politically correct buttons for cheap easy rapport.
DOUBLE-BILL: Steven Soderbergh must have taken a good look here before his OCEANS 11 remake.
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: * . . . by me! MI already IS an espionage/caper genre crossover. Sorry.
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