Snowden * * *

Mental Note. Hack Flippant Phil

I have to be honest, I’m not a big fan of Oliver Stone. Too often he seems to take energy out of his films by focusing on unimportant and irrelevant issues or attempts to put energy back in by screaming at you (usually about unimportant or irrelevant issues); and he’s done it again with Snowden, which is a shame actually because Snowden is a really important story and deserves a better telling than this.

Though I must admit, this time the fault is more in the meandering than in the screaming,

Edward Snowden was a US Government employee and the ultimate whistle blower as he embarrassingly exposed the Government for collating and keeping unnecessary data on millions of US citizens.

But this true story was told in a film called Citizenfour only  a year ago - an excellent documentary by Laura Poitras where you actually see Snowden come out in real time in front of the filmmaker and two journalists.  And it has to be said the most powerful and affecting scenes in Snowden are simply re-enactments of Citizenfour.  

So I can only assume the reason this dramatisation exists (aside from making money) is to  tell the backstory of Edward Snowden - that which led us to the events of Citizenfour and to show the things that could not - for practical reasons - be shown in Citizenfour.

Strangely we see nothing of his childhood and remain in the dark on that.  We see him meet his girlfriend through an online dating site and go through his discharge from the army and his acceptance into the CIA.  We do not learn how he became a wizard at internetz.

We see him given job opportunities which leaves him divided between his career and his love for his girlfriend, Lindsay, but there is never much tension there “Well,l if this will make you happy” “But what about you?” “I’ll be happy if you’re happy”  blah blah, the most mundane domestic discussions.  The actress who plays Lindsay looks nothing like her incidentally but she has good spirit.  Nicolas Cage does a cameo as some kind of ill-defined person.  You sense he was a mentor, but their interaction is so scant we can’t be sure.

In a critical scene we see Snowden download a swag of  protected data on to his mobile phone and how he sneaks it out the building - but even that isn’t as tense as it could be. Overall there is just no real sense of urgency, fear or danger.  

As a dramatisation Snowden is a pretend re-telling and that is how it comes across - not the genuine article. Somewhat impotent.

I’ve got to say though, Joseph Gordon Levitt does a very convincing Edward Snowden. Gosh he looks and talks like him!

Otherwise, the best of this we  have already seen in Citizenfour, and if you haven’t I’d encourage you to do so, I think you’ll find it a little more rewarding.