Movie Review - Snowden

Snowden (2016)

Starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Shailene Woodley, Rhys Ifans, Melissa Leo, Zachary Quinto, Tom Wilkinson, Scott Eastwood, Timothy Olyphant, Lakeith Stanfield, Joely Richardson, and Nicolas Cage

Directed by Oliver Stone

I think it's admittedly a little difficult to come to the Oliver Stone-directed Snowden without having some outside feelings towards the title character.  Was Edward Snowden an American traitor or a hero?  This film undoubtedly takes the latter stance with Snowden being treated in an almost saint-like manner at times.  The lack of a balanced look at the polarizing figure is slightly disappointing, but looking beyond that, Snowden is a surprisingly engaging and well-made film that kept my attention throughout and provides a good glimpse (albeit a surface one) at one of America's biggest political events of the new century.

Told within a framing device of his interview with documentarian Laura Poitrus (Melissa Leo) whose film Citizenfour brought his story to even more masses, the film opens in 2013 with Edward Snowden (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) taking a huge leap and deciding to release private information he possesses that states that the United States government is spying on all Americans via their cell phones and computers.  The release of this information will undoubtedly cause him to be called a traitor, but after nearly ten years working in various government agencies including the NSA and CIA, Snowden feels that his findings should be made public.  The film then flashes back to the decade-younger Snowden as he gets his first job in Washington, D.C., and he meets his significant other Lindsay (Shailene Woodley).  Praised everywhere for his expertise in computers and coding, Snowden goes from job to job within the government, learning bits and pieces about how post-9/11 it was decided that -- for the safety and well-being of the country -- certain privacy laws would be lessened at certain times.

Frankly, no one is more surprised than me that this nearly two-and-a-half hour movie based on politics kept my attention, but kudos to Oliver Stone (who also co-wrote the film) for keeping the film moving at a solid pace and to Joseph Gordon-Levitt for his solid portrayal of the title character.  While Snowden himself is treated with kid gloves and saint-like (there's a particular moment towards the film's conclusion where a resolute and determined Snowden walks out of a dark bunker with a halo of glorious light surrounding him as soaring music swells in the background), I give props to Stone for depicting both the Bush and Obama administration with equal amounts of distrust.  Somehow, though, even though I liked the film, I can't find myself overly praising a whole lot about it and that's due in large part to the depiction of Snowden as too much of a do-gooder.  It doesn't help that during the film's conclusion, Stone has the real Edward Snowden literally "take the place" of Gordon-Levitt, putting the real figure into the spotlight in a way that detracts from the film in a distracting manner.  The politically-driven Stone had every right to create the film he wanted to create, but the lack of a critical eye towards the title character hurts the film a bit in the end and makes it difficult to praise its more-than-adequate cinematic craftwork.

The RyMickey Rating:  B-