Review of Citizenfour (2014) by Patrick L — 01 Apr 2015

"Citizenfour is one of the most explosive and riveting documentaries I've ever seen".

Movie Review: Citizenfour.

Date Viewed: December 6 2014.

Directed By Laura Poitras (My Country, My Country and The Oath).

Starring: Edward Snowden, William Binney,.

Glenn Greenwald, Jacob Appelbaum, Laura Poitras, Jeremy Scahill and Ewen MacAskill.

"Citizenfour" is a riveting documentary about the accounts of documentarian Laura Poitras and investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald as they encounter NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. It plays like a riveting spy thriller but that's what special about "Citizenfour", not only is it a documentary, it's also a 1970s-style spy thriller. It's one of the most explosive and compelling documentaries I've ever seen.

The movie starts in January 2013 where we see Laura Poitras receiving an encrypted e-mail from an unknown stranger calling himself Citizen Four. Five months later, Poitras and journalist Glenn Greenwald go to Hong Kong to meet Citizen Four who is now known to the public as Edward Snowden. He gives them classified information including details about the NSA illegally wiretapping millions of Americans after the events of September 11, 2001. Soon, media outlets from around the world covered the NSA leaks and the Obama administration listed Snowden as traitor to the United States.

Poitras, Greenwald and Snowden go through a series of tense meetings including some with Guardian intelligence reporter Ewen MacAskill. After the events in Hong Kong, Poitras and Greenwald were followed by intelligence agents, Snowden managed to board a plane to Russia and president Vladimir Putin gave him asylum.

"Citizenfour" is definitely a great piece documentary cinema. There will of course be other movies about Edward Snowden in the future, but I don't think any of them will be as powerful as "Citizenfour". It also offers us with a lot of questions, Did the NSA go to far on wiretapping people's phones? Was Edward Snowden a traitor to the United States or did he want to expose the truth about the NSA and the wiretappings of millions of Americans? Poitras posed this movie as the final piece of her post-9/11 trilogy which began with "My Country, My Country", the documentary about the 2006 elections in Iraq (which was under U.S. occupation) and "The Oath", the 2010 documentary about Guantanamo Bay.

The information about the American government spying on their own people is terrifying but we also get to know more about the infamous NSA whistleblower.

Whether you're a Democrat or a Republican, you will be blown away by "Citizenfour", it's one of the best movies of the year.