Review of Snowden (2016) by Rob A — 26 Jan 2017

The best thing Snowden has going for it is Joseph Gordon-Levitt. His performance is on another level, and it makes a person that many have villainized into a sympathetic figure. That's a tough task.

It also did a solid job of explaining Snowden's motivations. The struggle it had was explaining the more technical side of things. Much of the tech lingo and explanation of what he did was not brought down to layman's terms so I struggled with it.

The film is repetitive throughout, and that starts to get annoying. There are only so many times I can see Snowden scandalized by what the government is doing before I start to get bored and annoyed that he isn't going into action.

Then they made the unfortunate decision to cast Shailene Woodley as his girlfriend. She is hitting way above her age and weight-class in this film. Every moment she is on-screen it is distracting because I can't adjust to someone who looks like a teen in this overly-sexualized role.

I think there are aspects of Snowden that work as a film, and I do think it makes a case for why he did what he did. However, the overall film is too flawed and disjointed to grab a general audience (or me.

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