Review of Snowden (2016) by Ben S — 25 Sep 2016

When it was announced that Oliver Stone would be taking on the story of Edward Snowden, I immediately feared that it would be a little "out-there" like his film JFK; more conspiracy thriller than informative biopic.

Fortunately, I was wrong. In fact, this film appears to be his most accessible one in years, albeit not as gripping as he could have made it. Often, Stone sacrifices pace for digging deep into the science of the NSA's surveillance programs, which works as an informative piece for people unfamiliar, like me, but doesn't mesh as well with the rest of the movie. Where his direction and screenplay falter at times, the entire cast is there to bring the movie back on track and then some. Levitt and Woodley give excellent performances but my favorite performance had to have been Rhys Ifans who is downright bone-chilling at times. Honorable mentions to Scott Eastwood and Nicolas Cage.

This movie, contrary to what I believed it to be, is more about the events leading up to his heroic act than the act itself; it really puts the focus on who he was as a person. On Stone's part, this is a move that works considering the large number of people who see him as a "terrorist". Even if you leave the theater with your mind unchanged, you'll still have a better understanding of who he was and why he did it.

From kindergarten to when I graduated high school to now, I am always being reminded of "See something, say something". What Edward Snowden did is exactly that. We can pretend that we would all be fine if we had no idea that Verizon was collecting phone information without our consent or that all of our private information was up for grabs, but that kind of thinking is dangerous, not to mention contradictory to what the founders of the government would have wanted for us. If we don't think critically about the people who govern us, then what's the point? And it's not as if I'm anti-government (or this movie, for that matter), in fact, I believe that big government and constant invasive surveillance don't have to be a package deal.

Sure, collecting all of our information might have been for the "greater good", but that's not only a steep price, that's also one that nobody knew they were paying. Being a patriot and being critical of your government are not mutually exclusive ideas. In this case, being a patriot is trying to bring your government back from a dark path that it had no problem sprinting down. I can't think of any other word to call Edward Snowden but "hero".