Details

Release year: 1998

Storyline

Shadowy elements in the NSA target a nine-year old autistic savant for death when he is able to decipher a top secret code.

Top credits

Directors

Harold Becker

Writers

Cast

Bruce Willis — Art Jeffries
Miko Hughes — Simon Lynch
Alec Baldwin — Nick Kudrow
Chi McBride — Tommy B. Jordan

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Did you know

• Miko Hughes spent time with many autistic children at a special school to understand how to portray an autistic child. Bennett Leventhal, head of the child psychiatry department at the University of Chicago, spent six weeks before the shoot tutoring Hughes at a school for autistic children. Leventhal complimented Hughes at the movie's premiere, saying, "even I believed you."

• Alec Baldwin appeared in this film due to a contractual obligation to Universal Pictures. Baldwin had previously backed out of a film for Universal and signed an agreement promising the studio another film. Years later, this film was presented to him and he did it to avoid further litigation.

• The plot bears a striking resemblance to a real event in history as reported by Bruce Watson on DailyFinance's Website on 24 December 2009: '...In December 1955, Sears Roebuck ran a newspaper ad with what they claimed was Santa's direct number. Unfortunately, the phone number they offered was one digit off; instead of Sears, it linked to a top secret line at CONAD, the Continental Air Defense Command. When Colonel Harry Shoup, the command's director of operations, answered the phone, he expected to hear about a missile strike against the US. Instead, he got a little kid who wanted to talk to Santa. Although the conversation ended with the child crying and Shoup fuming, the Colonel eventually came around and began giving the children updates on Santa's travels through the night sky. The following year, CONAD offered a new, non-secret, phone number that children could call. In 1958, when CONAD became NORAD, the new command continued the tradition...'