Review of Snowden (2016) by Ben J — 18 Jan 2017

I'm biased as a huge fan and follower of the of Snowden case as it unfolded, but this is a top notch dramatization by legendary director Oliver Stone, with an impressive cast that includes an excellent Gordon-Levitt as the lead, a grizzly Nicholas Cage, Shailene Woodley and an unrecognisably authoritarian Rhys Ifans.

The latter has a fantastically menacing showdown scene where he fills a room-sized videoconferencing screen Big Brother style as he tries to crack the wavering whistleblower. Gordon-Levitt perfectly captures the journey Snowden travels from staunch patriotic conservative to defiant activist, tipped by the realisation that even the harmless backup software he built personally was being used for mass surveillance.

The scenes of his final days holed up in a Hong Kong hotel were more viscerally captured in the real deal documentary footage in Citizenfour IMO, but everything else is a pleasure to see transformed from newsprint to film - particularly Snowden's growing incredulity as he learns the extent of NSA powers.

Highly recommended whether you're familiar with Snowden or curious how we came to learn of our governments' mass surveillance programs, when even our elected representatives were being told on oath they didn't exist.