As with most of Oliver Stone’s fact-based movies, Snowden is a work that needs to be taken with a grain of salt. Fascinating and frightening, the film sets
out to give the title character’s point of view concerning his reasons for
having released over 1.5 million documents he stole from the CIA and other
government agencies to the press. To be
sure, one comes away from the movie, if not sympathizing with the main
character, understanding why this anti-hero did what he did…at least according
to Stone and fellow screenwriter Kieran Fitzgerald.
Beginning in Hong Kong in 2013, Edward Snowden (Joseph
Gordon-Levitt) meets with three journalists (Melissa Leo, Zachary Quinto &
Tom Wilkinson) in order to negotiate terms for them to have access to the
inflammatory material he’s obtained. These negotiations take time and Stone
uses that as an excuse to share various flashbacks with the audience to get us
up to speed as to how the title character came to be in the pickle he’s
in. We see him as a marine recruit who’s
discharged due to injury, as well as in subsequent jobs as a computer analyst,
writer of code and backdoor hacker, for the CIA as well as other agencies they
hire out to. Along the way, this conservative patriot becomes more and more
troubled by the government’s invasive methods, all in the name of preserving
our freedom.
All of this is told in an arresting way, propelled by
Gordon-Levitt’s committed performance, as well as the work of Shaliene Woodley
as his girlfriend Lindsay Mills and Rhys Ifans as his unnerving immediate
superior Corbin O’Brian. And say what
you will about Stone, there’s no question he’s a master storyteller whose skill
at sweeping an audience away has few rivals. Before you know it, we’re caught
up in Snowden’s ethical dilemma and sharing in his fears, especially after a
sequence in which the director powerfully shows how easy it is for a civilian
to be caught up in an electronic web of intrigue, thanks to a few random forays
on the internet.
 Of course, where Stone is concerned, you know he
has a particular axe to grind and that his perspective may not be as unbiased
as he would hope. Be that as it may, the
fact that he’s able to make such compelling and engaging films should at the
very least encourage the viewer to seek out other perspectives pertaining to
the topic at hand. Agree with him or not, at the very least this provocateur
should be seen as one who incites those who question him to seek out the facts
to keep him honest.Â
This article appears in Sep 22-28, 2016.
