Scene Anatomy 101: Sneakers
Posted by George H. Sirois on 07.19.2006
The Exposition Trilogy, Part 1 of 3
There comes a time during a movie when the audience needs to know some very important information about what had happened before the movie started. This forces the writers and directors to backtrack and fill us in on what one particular character – usually the antagonist – has been doing with themselves. The trick with this very important tool in storytelling, exposition, is knowing how, when and where to use it. If it's used in the wrong way, it can stop the movie dead in its tracks and make the whole scene feel contrived, like we're being spoon-fed information.
But if it's done right, when the information is revealed by the characters in a very natural exchange, and advances the story at the same time, then the audience can see the stakes being raised before their eyes. This, of course, makes the overall experience of seeing this story unfold much better.
In the case of the 1992 Phil Alden Robinson film Sneakers, over an hour in the film goes by before we know a very valuable piece of information. The film opens with a flashback scene involving Martin Brice (played in the present time by Robert Redford) and his friend Cosmo. The two of them are in the middle of conducting some friendly old computer fraud by hacking into various bank accounts and re-locating the money to other sources. The first one we see is the Republican Party making a generous donation to the Black Panthers. Unfortunately for them, their playtime was being traced by the police. Fortunately for Martin, he was out getting pizza when the cops came in and dragged Cosmo away. Martin finished up his pizza and then high-tailed it to Canada.
Twenty years later, we see Martin with a team of misfits – played by Dan Aykroyd, Sidney Poitier, David Strathairn, and River Phoenix – breaking into various banks and other buildings to test their security. Martin has changed his name to Martin Bishop to keep the cops away, since he is still being sought out by the Government, and he found out that Cosmo had died in prison.
Then, one day, Martin gets a visit from two men in the National Security Agency who want him to steal a special box from a famous mathematician. Once his team accomplishes its mission, they discover that the box is a code-breaker that can unscramble the most un-breakable of systems. The Federal Reserve, the National Power Grid, you name it; the box can hack into anything.
The next morning, Martin's team discovers that the mathematician has been killed and the men who recruited them don't work for the NSA at all. So who are they and who do they work for? Martin is determined to find out and he seeks out his friend, a Russian diplomat, for answers. But just as Martin is about to get some information about who the faux-NSA men work for, the Russian is killed and Martin is knocked out.
Martin wakes up in a large office. The lights are out, and he has no idea where he is. All he can see is a silhouette of someone standing a distance away from him. Martin slowly sits up, holding his hand to his head and wincing. The man takes notice.
MAN: Pain?
The man steps closer to Martin. (He is played by Ben Kingsley.)
MAN: Try aspirin.
The man then does a very familiar trick with the aspirin bottle; he quickly puts it into one of his hands and then holds out both fists. Which hand is the bottle in?
Martin can't believe what he's seeing.
MARTIN: Cosmo.
As an answer, the man who truly is Cosmo – the man Martin was so sure died in prison – holds up the aspirin bottle and smiles. He also shows some sympathy for his old friend, since Cosmo knows how aggressive some of his men, especially Wallace, can be.
COSMO: I'm sorry if he hurt you. I'm afraid Wallace doesn't like you very much.
Martin sits up, trying to digest everything that he's experienced in the past few hours. Man, his head really got hit hard.
MARTIN: You oughta have that guy checked for rabies.
COSMO: Rabies occurs only in warm-blooded animals.
Cosmo quickly starts to explain himself, and the actions of his men. They were a little extra aggressive for a reason.
COSMO: Anyway, I couldn't have you talking to the Russians. Five years ago, yes we could trust them not to go running to the FBI, or if they did, we could trust the FBI not to believe them. Today… you can't trust anybody.
Now, Martin's really confused. He got involved in something with the retrieval of Dr. Janek's box, but he has no idea how big this is, or what this is all about.
MARTIN: What the hell's going on here? Cosmo, what… what happened?
Cosmo's answer is more than a little cryptic.
COSMO: The world changed on us, Marty. And without our help.
MARTIN: What happened?
Cosmo stands up and leads Martin over to a desk in his office. He understands his friend's confusion and decides to help him out a bit. This is where the exposition comes in, since Cosmo has to fill in the blanks over what has happened to him while Martin went about putting his group together.
COSMO: There I was in prison. And one day I help some nice older gentlemen make some free telephone calls. They turned out to be, let us say, good family men.
MARTIN: Organized crime?
Cosmo laughs at that phrase.
COSMO: Don't kid yourself. It's not that organized. Anyway, they arranged for me to get an early release from my unfortunate incarceration and I began to perform a variety of services.
Cosmo walks over to a computer at his desk and turns on a program he had put together.
COSMO: For starters, I re-organized their entire financial operation: budgets, payroll, money laundering, you name it. And the whole network is protected by a very powerful encryption system so the government cannot read it.
Martin's starting to understand what Cosmo is getting at.
MARTIN: But if the Feds get Janek's box…
Cosmo nods to Martin.
COSMO: Disaster. Therefore, we must have it.
MARTIN: To protect the organization.
COSMO: Yes.
Martin lets this revelation sit in his head for a moment, and then he quickly rejects it.
MARTIN: No, I don't buy it. I know you.
Cosmo smiles. He knew Martin wouldn't buy an explanation like that, no matter how long they've been apart from each other.
COSMO: God, it's good to see you.
Cosmo then glances up at the camera that is attached to the ceiling. He then quickly beckons Martin into another room across the way. He starts whispering to Martin as they walk to the other room, which is sound-proof.
COSMO: (whispering) We were gonna change the world, Marty. Remember? Did you ever get around to actually doing it? No, I guess not. Well, I think I can.
MARTIN: (not whispering) Really?
COSMO: (whispering, almost pushing Martin into the other room) Yes.
Once the two men are in the sound-proof room, Cosmo and Martin sit down as Cosmo starts to lay out his true intentions for the box he now has, thanks to his old friend. The exposition Cosmo had explained before is nowhere just wouldn't work for Martin, nor would it work for the audience. Getting the ultimate code-breaker to help out an element of organized crime? Nuh-uh. Cosmo's got something much bigger in mind.
COSMO: What's wrong with this country, Marty? Money, you taught me that. Evil defense contractors had it, noble causes did not. Politicians are bought and sold like so much chattel. Our problems multiply. Pollution, crime, drugs, poverty, disease, hunger, despair, we throw GOBS of money at them! The problems always get worse. Why is that? Because money's most powerful ability is to allow bad people to continue doing bad things at the expense of those who don't have it.
Now this sounds like the Cosmo Martin knows.
MARTIN: I agree. Now who did you say you were working for again?
COSMO: Oh, that's just my day job. Listen, when I was in prison, I learned everything in this world, including money, operates not on reality…
Martin quickly finishes Cosmo's sentence.
MARTIN: … but the perception of reality.
Cosmo smiles and starts playing a little game that he and Martin played years back when they were innocently hacking into computers and bank accounts. This type of exchange would justify their actions, and Cosmo intends to do the same here.
COSMO: Posit: People think a bank might be financially shaky.
MARTIN: Consequence: People start to withdraw their money.
COSMO: Result: Pretty soon it is financially shaky.
MARTIN: Conclusion: It can make banks fail.
COSMO: BZZZ! I've already done that. Maybe you've read about a few? Think bigger.
MARTIN: Stock market?
COSMO: Yes.
MARTIN: Currency market?
COSMO: Yes.
MARTIN: Commodities market?
COSMO: Yes.
MARTIN: Small countries?
Cosmo looks Martin in the eye, and Martin can see just how dangerous Janek's box is in his old friend's hands.
COSMO: I might even be able to crash the whole damn system. Destroy all records of ownership. Think of it, Marty. No more rich people, no more poor people, everybody's the same. Isn't that what we said we always wanted?
Martin can see what's going on. While he grew up and got out of his anti-establishment behavior, Cosmo never did.
MARTIN: Cos, you haven't gone crazy on me, have you?
COSMO: Who else is gonna change the world, Marty? Greenpeace?
Martin laughs. Cosmo doesn't. He's dead serious about what he intends to do.
MARTIN: You are crazy.
Cosmo doesn't dignify that accusation with a response. Instead, he leaves the sound-proof room and walks over to another computer that's in the main office. This computer has Janek's black box hooked up to it.
COSMO: Tomorrow they will retrieve your fingerprints from the gun that killed a Russian consulate officer. The following day, those prints will be run through an FBI computer. They will come up with a name.
Cosmo types in Martin's real name.
COSMO: Martin Brice. My old and good friend who promised me we would not get in trouble, and who I might add, did not. Then they will check this database in Washington, DC, which I'm now able to access, thanks to you.
Cosmo activates Janek's box and hacks into the FBI's Most Wanted records. Martin's real name and record is on the screen.
COSMO: Of course, no one knows where Martin Brice is, do they?
Martin gulps as Cosmo starts to type something else into Martin's record.
COSMO: But what if this…
The name that Cosmo is typing is "Martin Bishop."
COSMO: … indicated… an alias?
Cosmo looks at Martin, his finger hovering over the Enter button on the keyboard. Once Cosmo hits that button, it's only a matter of time before Martin's new identity is rendered useless.
MARTIN: Don't. Don't do it, Cos.
Cosmo nods at Martin. His warm-hearted nature he had before is very much gone.
COSMO: Pain?
Martin nods in response. Cosmo's answer…
COSMO: Try prison.
Cosmo hits the Enter button. The information on Martin's record is now officially updated. Once the Feds access his file, he's as good as arrested and imprisoned.
COSMO: Ciao.
This scene uses exposition in a very strong way, since it reveals one thing after another while keeping the plot moving. We find out in just this precious few minutes that-
A. Martin's friend Cosmo is still alive.
B. Cosmo made friends in prison and was able to become a free man in exchange for helping out an organized crime element.
C. Cosmo informed his men that the box was needed to keep the crime element safe, but…
D. … in reality, Cosmo is only using these men to help him continue the pranks that he and Martin conducted when they were younger, only on a much grander and more destructive scale.
And throughout this scene, which only involved a conversation between old friends, the information we were given was done in a very entertaining and suspenseful manner. Now that we know who Martin and his men have been working for in this case, we can move forward into the second half of the film where Martin has to find out where Cosmo's office was located, steal the box back from Cosmo, and clear his record before the Feds track him down and arrest him.
Next week, we'll take a look at the origin story of one of horror's greatest icons – the bastard son of a hundred maniacs.
