River Phoenix Sneakers (1992)

River Phoenix (born August 23, 1970, Madras, Oregon; died October 31, 1993, West Hollywood, California) played Carl Arbogast in Sneakers (1992) — the team's teenage hacker, the youngest member of the crew, and the comedic engine of several supporting scenes. Phoenix died of a drug overdose outside the Viper Room thirteen months after the film's release; Sneakers and The Thing Called Love (1993) were among his last completed feature roles.

Carl is a part written around Phoenix's specific charm

The script gives Carl two registers: the smartest person in the room when he is at a keyboard, and a 19-year-old in over his head everywhere else. Phoenix makes both work.

"Phoenix is the team's lightness. He gives the heist scenes their pulse — you watch him do something complicated and you smile because he's smiling." — Janet Maslin, The New York Times (1992)

Carl's flirtation with the receptionist outside Janek's office is one of the film's running jokes; Phoenix plays it with a teenager's nervous good faith.

Phoenix had been the most acclaimed young American actor of his generation

Beginning with Stand by Me (1986) at age fifteen and continuing through Running on Empty (1988, Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination at seventeen) and My Own Private Idaho (1991), Phoenix was widely treated as the Brando of his generation — an actor of unusual interior life and apparent moral seriousness.

"He had the rare quality you can't teach: he was always thinking on camera. You could see the second thought arrive." — Sidney Lumet, on directing Phoenix in Running on Empty, The New York Times (1993)

The death

Phoenix died of acute drug intoxication on the sidewalk outside the Viper Room on Sunset Boulevard in the early hours of October 31, 1993. He was twenty-three. Dark Blood (1993), then in production, was completed two decades later from existing footage; Sneakers remains one of his most widely seen finished films.

"He was the best of his generation, and he is the warning. River's death is the line between the 1980s movie business and what came after." — Peter Biskind, Down and Dirty Pictures (2004) (book, not available online)

Selected filmography

Year	Film	Notes
1986	Stand by Me	Breakthrough
1988	Running on Empty	Best Supporting Actor nomination
1989	Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade	Young Indy
1991	My Own Private Idaho	Gus Van Sant
1992	Sneakers	Carl Arbogast
1993	The Thing Called Love	One of his last completed roles
1993	Dark Blood	Unfinished; released 2012