Review of Snowden (2016) by Spangle — 03 Feb 2017

Edward Snowden is an infamous man nowadays. After leaking that American citizens and the entire world were being watched by the NSA, he became the most wanted man in America. People were split on whether or not this man was a hero or a traitor. It is a hefty question for which there is no easy answer. On the one hand, he pulled the wool off our eyes and forced us to see what our government become: unhinged. The government never knew when to step and, even if they had an inkling it was wrong, they trudged on anyways. On the other hand, what he did revealed top secret information to our enemies. Yet, it is not this debate that takes center stage in Oliver Stone's film. Rather, it is an examination of the man behind the leak with little focus on the leaked information itself, which makes for a largely mixed bag as a result. While a compelling film when it really hits it stride, the film never dives into the leak enough, instead focusing on the love between Snowden (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and Lindsay Mills (Shailene Woodley).

Personally, I believe Snowden to be a hero. Here is a man that has a great girlfriend (Woodley teaching pole dancing is what cinema was always intended to be), is incredibly smart, and has a well paying job. He has the world in the palm of his hand. Yet, because of his rigid moral stance regarding what his job entailed, he opts to let the world know what is going on. Personally, I would have just quit the job and started doing something else, even if it was just stocking shelves in a grocery store overnight. Anything else would have satisfied. Blowing the whistle would be the last option in my mind. Because he did something I find incomprehensible that will haunt him for the rest of his life and it is something that benefited society, he is a hero. Unfortunately, many people do not see it this and he is hunted like a fugitive.

As for the film itself, it is simply too unfocused to be successful. Is it a political thriller or is it a biopic? Director Oliver Stone directs both parts with an assured hand, but the two feel like complete strangers. The two halves of this film never blend and make it work with one another. Rather, they just run off and split a potentially good film into two half decent ones. This is very unfortunate to watch unfold, but it is clear that the romance half is the portion that can go by the waste side. Instead of focusing on the leak and the very compelling scene in the Hong Kong hotel room with the documentary filmmaker and writers from The Guardian, the film focuses on his love with Lindsay Mills. While I love Shailene Woodley in this film and in anything (she is another actor that really needs better material though), her portion here adds nothing. It humanizes Snowden, but it borders on being oddly offensive. Early in the film, we learn she is a liberal who questions the government. Snowden is a conservative who does not. When they watch Obama being elected in 2008, Lindsay remarks in the pride she feels that Edward has become more liberal and is subtly happy about Obama winning the election. In essence, she has made him willing to question his government and not just blindly follow. The problems here is two-fold. On one, it positions all conservatives as mindless drones. I am a moderate, so I have no dog in this race, but this strikes me as an unfair painting of an entire half of the population. Secondly, Edward does the leak so that people can question their government. In essence, it is because of the influence of Lindsay that he has become what he is. If you read him as being a traitor, this film essentially lays the blame for that on his girlfriend because, otherwise, he would have just been a guy working for the NSA who does what he is told.

Yet, it is the division in time between the two halves of the story that make the film sputter out of control. Stone cannot strike a balance between the two and it is the kind of story that demands that precision focus. Instead, he lets it get out of control as we get an unnecessary romance and not enough details regarding the highly complicated NSA material. This film could have been a great vessel for discussing Snowden's status, but instead it spends too much time humanizing him and not diving into the compelling parts of his story. While we know who he is and get introduced to Lindsay, his relationship and himself are too much of the story when compared to the vitally important information he leaked for public consumption. As an overall film, Snowden entertains, but lacks focus and needed some fine tuning before being released as a final product. It is a film that would benefit from being trimmed to focus more heavily on the CIA/NSA surveillance instead of a cliche romance story.