'Snowden' Review

Image from Indiewire

By Darian Scalamoni

            Oliver Stone has had an interesting career. He was known as one of the best directors of the 80s and 90s before fizzling out in the 2000s. He directed films adored by critics and audiences everywhere like Platoon, Wall Street, Born on the Fourth of July, JFK, Natural Born Killers and Any Given Sunday. It was in the new millennium where Stone seemed to lose his vision as a director as his next two films Alexander and World Trade Center are regarded as two of his absolute worst and two of the worst of the decade by many. His most recent efforts, W. and Savages though, have been solid but unremarkable by any means. Unfortunately, his latest film, Snowden continues the trend of Stone as a descending filmmaker.

            Snowden is based on the story of Edward Snowden, played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who was an employee of the CIA and NSA who back in 2013 leaked classified information about how the organizations’ had the ability to access anything from anyone at any time. Though the premise is incredibly intriguing, it seems that Stone drags the movie along through aspects that aren’t that important to the story in general. It’s when Snowden makes the realization that the US government’s anti-terror plots are extensive so much that the NSA is spying on everyone. It’s once they begin to access anyone’s private information with no reasonable cause that Snowden becomes appalled. From here it is the point where the titular character begins to construct a plan to risk everything and become one of the most famous whistleblowers in national history.

            The movie does a great job of illustrating the real life Snowden as Gordon-Levitt does a tremendous job at portraying the former CIA employee. He masters the voice of the man who literally traveled all around the globe for his job, along with his girlfriend Lindsay Mills, played by Shailene Woodley. The chemistry between the couple is very much believable as Mills is constantly in confusion and mystery in what it is her boyfriend knows. Obviously with the job he is, he can’t disclose much of anything to her and her reactions and emotion within the film is genuine. Other cast members that stand out are Rhys Ifans who plays Corbin O’Brian, the guy who hires Snowden for the CIA and takes on a mentor role essentially. He does well in a contained but important role within the film. Other actors like Tom Wilkinson, Melissa Leo and Zachary Quinto seem wasted in an ensemble as they play the journalists and documentarians who met with Snowden to get the story out to the public. They don’t add much gravitas to the film so these roles could’ve been anyone to be honest. Nicolas Cage is another character who isn’t even needed to help serve the plot as he’s in 3 pretty unimportant scenes that should’ve been cut from the movie anyway.

            If you’re familiar with Stone as a director, it’s clear that he approaches every project with a particular viewpoint, this movie is no different. The dialogue does a decent job of providing both sides of the argument but it seems that Stone believes that Snowden was more of a national hero while most disagree, especially the leaders of the United States. The editing style is a bit choppy as it interweaves between Snowden in 2013 in his hotel room in Hong Kong before giving the story to The Guardian and the events that happened in his life from 2004 until that point.

            My biggest gripe with the film again, is the run time. Snowden clocks in around 2 hours and 15 minutes but it feels like you could’ve cut about 25 minutes out and had a better movie. I was often looking at my watch as it felt like the narrative was merely crawling to its inevitable endpoint which sees Snowden living in Russia where he was granted residency by Vladimir Putin. The interesting subject matter could’ve made for a fantastic film and one that put Oliver Stone back in the limelight but unfortunately, that does not happen with Snowden.

6.7/10