Snowden

So this is a difficult film to review because on one hand, there is the political remifications of the story of Edward Snowden. There is the political opinions that come with his story and the opinions of whether or not what he did was correct or not. I have figured out that that's not exactly what I want to put on this blog. If you follow me on Twitter you can probably get an understanding of where I stand politically and I'll leave my political standings to 140 character tweets that probably require more than that to interpret, but for the time being, I want to look at this movie objectively. I want to put aside as much of the politics as I can and talk about the subject matter that is Edward Snowden.

If you don't know the story of Edward Snowden he was a computer professional who worked for the NSA as a contractor during the 2000s. He is most known for leaking classified information to the media about America's cyber wire tapping program. He is currently being sought after by the United States for violating the Espionage Act of 1917 and theft of government property.

The movie follows his story. The movie bounces back and forth between the day after he steals this classified information and is about to give it all to the Guardian Newspaper, and when he first started his career with the government. Edward Snowden (played by Joseph Gordon Levitt) is portrayed as a man who always wanted to serve his country but when he broke his legs in the military he needed to find another way and that was with cyber warfare and computers in the CIA.

When the movie is in 2013, he is interacting with the reporters with the Guardian (played by Zachary Quinto and Tom Wilkinson) and a Documentary maker by the name of Laura Poitras (played by Melissa Leo). The main purpose of these flash forwards are to set up the timeline of Snowden's work with the government and his backstory. While I enjoyed a little bit of the paranoia that went into these scenes and everyone involved gave really good performances, the real meat of the movie is the story of the different jobs he had between the CIA, and the NSA.

The movie is pretty clever in how it builds the motivation for Snowden to go from an almost blind followers of the United States to someone willing to give away all these classified documents. Between his time with the CIA and his experience with the NSA, Snowden finds himself in a lot of situations where the lines of morality are very grey and he's unsure of whether or not he can really follow through with the things that he is doing.

At the beginning, he is prompted to assist in some field work with the CIA but he has some moral objections that really start him down the track of beginning to question his government and the activities that he is exposed to. And its an interesting progression.

At first you see the government cyber-snooping as just a matter of being able to fight the terrorists with every weapons possible. While its not exactly the most morally correct ways to fight terrorism, if you're like me and you like to find the arguments in both sides, you can make the argument that this is all for the sake of national security and a way to make America safe.

But then there's a progression of who exactly we're spying on. At first he thinks its just our enemies but then he realizes that we're spying on our allies to gain a political and economic advantage. And then slowly he realizes that the spying without a warrant expands to American citizens and that's when he starts to rethink his position and he begins to worry about those around him and whether or not he can stand for such activity going on without the American public knowing.

Now I will get to the leanings this movie obviously has, but I thought for the majority of the movie, they were showing both sides of the argument pretty well. Snowden has a mentor by the name of

Corbin O'Brian (played by Rhys Ifans) and he brings up a lot of the points that are counter to the thought that Snowden was right to bring this information forward. And whether Oliver Stone the director wanted to or not, the other side makes some pretty good points.

The debate between Liberty and Security is actually a topic that I've been interested in since college, especially since I've lived through the explosion of the internet and the reality that we expose our lives more than we ever have with Facebook, Google, etc, and there are points in this movie where that debate is pretty level sided and it allows the audience to question the side that they're on and come to their own conclusions.

However, at a certain point in the movie, you can definitely tell where Oliver Stone stands and where he brings this movie. On top of that, there are a couple of moments that are created for dramatic effect and I'm almost certain did not happen, but were in the movie to persuade the audience to root for Edward Snowden and see him as a hero. Does that bother me? Well yes it does. I would rather this movie had ended on a more devise note making you question whether or not Snowden did the right thing or not, rather than putting Snowden on this pedestal. I understand that Stone has to make movies and its probably more profitable for him to create a hero than start a debate, but it is really obvious that Stone thinks Edward Snowden is this hero so much that in the end credits there's a weird Peter Gabriel song that makes it sound like Snowden died on a cross for our sins.

So it should be known with this that there is a pretty clear agenda that is being pushed in the movie Snowden. I'm not a great fact checker so I don't know all what was true and what wasn't true but I'm going to imagine that a good portion of the movie was fabricated a little bit to make the movie more of a espionage thriller.

And I'll give them credit, if you look past the fact that its exaggerated, this is actually a pretty good espionage thriller. Snowden is an interesting character that you do relate to. You see his point of view, you want him to succeed because he's a character in this movie. He's navigating his way through this world of espionage and again, if you put aside the political questions in it, its actually a really interesting story.

I do have to talk about Joseph Gordon Levitt in this movie because this movie has made me actually think that Levitt has really become on of my favorite actors. Edward Snowden is actually a little bit of a weird kid. He has this defined way of talking and even when he's talking to a crowd or in an interview, you can tell he's a little bit awkward and Levitt absolutely nails it.

Knowing the different roles that Levitt has played, I really enjoyed how different his portrayal of Snowden was from anything else he's done and its a really good performance.

Levitt is able to humanize Snowden in a way that I thought was possible but I didn't really realize it until I saw this movie. I didn't see Levitt, I saw Edward Snowden. I think if the movie was just going for the point of humanizing a person and putting the audience in the shoes of a man who is being hunted by the United States government, I think this just brings a powerful performance. I'm not totally sure if Levitt is going to get any Oscar Buzz around this role but honestly I kind of hope he does. Regardless of the problems with the rest of the movie, I think Levitt was shining part of it.

But that actually doesn't happen without Shailene Woodley as Lindsey Mills, Edward Snowden's girlfriend.

I don't know how much of the relationship between these two was dramatized and how much of it was real but Woodley and Levitt just have this phenomenal chemistry that I think might have been my favorite part of the film. I honestly loved every minute between these two and the question wasn't so much whether or not Snowden was right or wrong, it was whether or not these two were going to make it as a couple. This relationship just humanizes Snowden so much more than anything else and I really enjoyed it. Woodley gives a really good performance as a significant other that goes along with the life of someone who travels a lot for work. There's a small point where there's doubt going through Snowden's mind about her but for the majority of the movie, this relationship was probably what worked the best for this film.

Overall, I have to say I really enjoyed Snowden. Regardless of the leanings that Oliver Stone clearly has, he knows how to make good films. I didn't mention all the solid actors in this film from Nicolas Cage, to Timothy Olyphant, but the main stars are Levitt and Woodley. I can't say I absolutely loved this film because of the obvious bias it has, but I enjoyed it a lot more than I expected I would and like I've said countless times in this review, regardless of the political leanings, I enjoyed the story and the execution of it.

But what did you think of Snowden? Do you think it had political biases? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @cmhaugen24 as well as send me your requests for movies I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

I'll leave you with this. John Oliver did a great bit on Government Surveillance where he actually went to Russia to meet with Edward Snowden. I'm putting a link to that interview here because it is a 30 minute long interview. However, he's a funny bit from that. I suggest checking out the entire interview. Enjoy!