Review of Snowden (2016) by Marcel A — 23 Sep 2016

Lacking the feverish rush that ignited 1993's conspiracy epic 'JFK', Oliver Stone tackles the saga of infamous whistleblower Edward Snowden with a workmanlike efficiency that pales in comparion with his most powerful work.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt gives a mature, capable performance in the role of the doe-eyed computer analyst who exposed the U.S. government's wholesale disregard for individual privacy in the name of global security post-9/11.

A more restrained Stone is not always a bad thing: the movie benefits greatly from its humanizing depiction of Snowden's relationship with longtime girlfriend Lindsay Mills (Shailene Woodley). At its best, it serves as a damning rebuke of executive branch overreach that spreads blame across both parties, Republican and Democrat alike.

For the most part, though, the film amounts to little more than Stone's big, slobbery Valentine to a still-controversial figure whose motives the iconoclastic director never bothers to question. By the time the real-life Snowden shows up in the movie's closing moments, "acting" as himself while being interviewed via satellite from his spartan Moscow apartment, any pretense of objectivity is lost.