Review of Citizenfour (2014) by William C — 28 Feb 2015

Grade: Safely 8/10.

CITIZENFOUR is a movie documentary that explores in depth what the US government is doing to ordinary citizens. It's eye opening the whole way through and thrilling in a slightly odd kind of way but all in all is important as documentaries go. It's secretive nature is well done and as the story breaks you really feel a sense of not only thrill, but also of a kind of emotion toward Snowden and very much thinking how he must be feeling right then.

Laura Poitras creates this in a way that although can be slightly dull especially at the beginning, still manages to be rewarding by the end and your mind will or should be buzzing like crazy as the credits slowly roll. Everyone involved on this is magnificent from the journalists Glenn Greenwald and Ewan Macaskill to Julien Assange, this really encapsulates how much raw emotion can be felt by real life events and how they unravel. One point about those involved is then the scale of people who keep coming, we start with two and by the end there seems to be so many people helping Snowden it seems unbelievable such a quiet conversation in a Hong Kong hotel room could create such a storm.

Look I mean this is one documentary that many many people will enjoy as I did, but I couldn't help feel although the overriding message is an interesting one and everything that happens, computing system jargon is fairly dull to those of us who are less learned and so some scenes end up just a little too confusing at points. It does however as previously mentioned have it's moments of brilliance and even in slow moving scenes you still remain enthralled and thrilled at everything that is going on.

I really feel this is a must see documentary and for US or UK or any country where surveillance was gathered citizens, this is important viewing. You may feel at the start that it isn't that great but just leave it on and you'll see why so many critics love it and also why it gained the Oscar for best Documentary of 2014, truly complex in it's own kind of way.

Edward Snowden is not your typical hero and although his voice is heard in this, you still can't help feel bad for him even if he knew what was coming, with all the news reports heard in the background we really see Snowden's true reaction to what he has done. A warning I will give to film watchers who want to see chases or truly chilling tales, well this isn't going to get your spine tingling, well maybe in a kind of way but truth is this is one documentary for listening intently, not watching only.

Overall I gave it a 8/10 and felt it to be a safe 8, it is firmly very good and one documentary I couldn't recommended more, I even expected more and still found it very good. Give it a go and it has the power to blow your mind, if you see this you may just see the true scale of what the people who control your national interests, do to the people who elected them in the first place.