Snowden – Video Movie Review
Snowden is the latest film directed by Oliver Stone, who has been hit or miss recently, but his pas films are enough for me to warrant watching any of his work, albeit two months late. One thing to keep in mind about this film is that it’s a hard one to judge because it’s a true story, and depending on what your personal opinion is on Edward Snowden, this film might either anger you or fill you with pride. I happen to think Edward Snowden is a hero, yes he committed treason, which is a crime but in comparison to crimes against privacy the NSA have committed is nothing. Stone does portray Snowden as a hero, but he does try to keep it balanced, and is balanced, the film does lend an ear as to why the massive spying is justified.
But it does make you wonder as to how much longer the people in support of the patriot act will believe that? Since not a single attack on National Security has been averted through the NSA. The film also shines a light on the ignorance of people, through Edward Snowden’s girlfriend, I mean it’s been three years since his interview with The Guardian, and people haven’t woken up as they should have.
Joseph Gordon Levitt has become quite involved in playing figures of history. He was tthat French dude in last year’s The Walk, and now he plays the titular Edward Snowden. He does a fine job in capturing the mannerisms of the guy, except for his voice. There’s too much bass in it, apart from that it’s all good. One of the things that stand out is his connection to everyone around him. His superiors, inferiors and equals. His relationship with his girlfriend played by the lovable Sharlene Woodley will make your heart bubble and burn it later on, thanks to how hypocritical and dumb most women are.
One thing I loved about this film is it’s script, you’ll always learn something about the real world in an Oliver Stone film.
Let’s be honest, I’m good with computers but not Snowden good, so the film skims through many of the computer hacking stuff, but they do bother to show us the logistics of what exactly each program is doing such as Prism.
All the classroom scenes with Rhys Ifans do a more than fantastic job on making not only the characters question their government but hopefully the audience as well. There’s a piece of dialogue that questions on who can break the fourth amendment and is it okay if the president does it? Rhys Ifans is fantastic btw, if they ever make a film on the recently deceased Leonard Cohen, Ifans is the man.
The whole supporting cast is fantastic actually. Tom Wilkinson, playing a journalist from The Guardian along with, Timothy Olyphant and Nicolas Cage who plays an instructor of Snowden’s bring a lot of seriousness and maturity to the film.
This film looks great as well, a bit too colorful for me, but when it comes to compositions and lighting it’s incredible. It’s shot by Anthony Dodd Mantle, the man who shoots most of Danny Boyle’s films, known for crafting psychedelic images that capture feelings of paranoia, through the overuse of extreme wide angles, the 11mm lens was used well in last year’s In The Heart of The Sea. Whereas Anthony Mantle’s work didn’t favor that film, it does here. The camera flows and shakes whenever Edward is conflicted or under fire, however whenever a beauraucrat or official is speaking , the camerawork is steady and straightforward. Everytime a location is established , there’s always an overhead shot of the room, as if it’s a surveillance camera almost, falling in perfectly with Snowden’s reasons of defecting, we’re all being watched and analyzed. The score and the end credits song by Peter Gabriel all factor in to the feel of the film.
There are a few things that bother me and took me out from the film, one of them being Hollywood trying to convince me that Skype can transmit 4K video, yeah all the video chats in this film look completely fake, some of the editing is a bit distracting, because there’s two narratives being told to combine into one by the end, one of them being Snowden uploading all the data he smuggled out and the other being the events on how he got to Hong Kong, at times there’s too much story. This scene is pretty obnoxious, it’s a bit on the nose with the Big Brother symbolism, in contrast to the entire film which is pretty subtle.
But those are petty things I am willing to overlook, and you should too, this is very well made and engrossing film but furthermore it is an important film as well, use this as an appetizer on Edward Snowden’s contribution to the world and then head over to the main course and watch Citizenfour, the documentary about the guy.
4/5 for Oliver Stone’s Snowden.
It’s a well handled film about a debate on information and power. Not quite as good as Michael Mann’s The Insider. But still pretty darn good.
