Review of Snowden (2016) by Bigdegs29 — 19 Sep 2016

Great movie that doesn't make factual sacrifices for the sake of entertainment. This is a political drama, not an action movie, so I'm not sure why people would complain about the lack of action...?

While it's hard to know exactly where on the hero/traitor line Edward Snowden actually falls, it feels like the movie did mostly a good job of presenting the justifications of both sides of the argument. Obviously, you're seeing the movie through Snowden's perspective, so it does make certain assumptions we can't be sure of. Such as his motivation. The movie presents Snowden's motivation as patriotism for his fellow Americans and, simply, the existence of a moral compass.

Obviously people will view this movie through a political lens. The movie presents the quandary as a freedom versus security scale. Are you okay with the government invasively spying on you in the name of greater security? Or are your rights and freedoms of greater importance? Personally, I skew to the latter. I think it is deplorable what the intelligence agencies of the States did to its own citizens and to its allies. I understand why they did it, I just believe sacrifices (including security) need to be made to protect our basic human rights.

Those who feel otherwise may be a little annoyed by the general leaning of the movie. But, I don't see how they could have leaned the other way when they're viewing the situation through the eyes of the protagonist, Snowden.

Definitely worth seeing if you're either open-minded or lean towards the freedom side of the scale I mentioned. If you believe security trumps everything else, you should probably skip this movie.