John Swansburg is giving Sneakers, one of my favorite early 90′s movies, some much-deserved respect on Slate:
Sneakers occupies a special category: It’s a movie I can watch again and again and never get tired of; it’s the movie I happily settle on when every other DVD or download doesn’t quite suit my mood. I think I find it so trusty because it’s action-packed without being too violent, and smart without taking itself too seriously. And, perhaps most important, it’s perfectly paced: Even when you know every scene by heart, not one of them feels like it lasts a second longer than it needs to. I’ve seen Sneakersmore than a dozen times; I’ve never hit fast forward.
When I worked at a theater when this was playing I would go into that theater all the time and watch bits and pieces of this and would later rewatch it on my taped-off-cable VHS constantly, just as he’s talking about here. I hadn’t seen it for a number of years but recently rewatched it and was pleasantly surprised that, yeah, despite all the dated technology and such it still held up as a light-hearted caper movie with a cast that has 17 different types of charm working for it.
