Review of Snowden (2016) by Mahlon M — 16 Sep 2016

Back-to-back weekends with back-to-back movies about heroes. Although Sully's heroism is almost universally acknowledged, in Snowden's case, the jury is still out. And for Oliver Stone, this, with Savages, is a back-to-back winner after a very long dry spell. If there was an award for casting, this would get my vote. Even Clint Eastwood's son, Scott, who through bad casting, bad direction, inexperience or raw lack of talent had failed to produce a worthy performance till now, IMHO, scratches a couple of those negatives off the board. And it isn't just the two leads, Gordon-Levett and Woodley, but Rhys Ifans, Zachary Quinto, and yes even Nicholas Cage (whom many, I'm sure, had written off), all make stellar contributions.

As for the subject matter, government secrecy and spying on it's own people, I think Stone handles it as fairly and clearly as possible given the incredible complexity of the technology involved. But we're still left up in the air on the secrecy/spying issue, knowing there's a need for it, while at the same time also knowing that all too often it's used to hide political corruption, and it's too easy to marginalize or destroy the character of whisltle-blowers. In the end, we're emotionally in Snowden's corner, but still too uninformed or unsure of what we do know, to know whether he did the right thing or not. I think it's fair to say the transparency window has gotten far too dark, and the buck is being passed to shreds.