Good but with avoidable flaws

Rating: 8/10 (8 August 2018)

First, I spent a career hunting people like Snowden, so I am definitely not a fan. But, this a generally really well written, told, and filmed story and it generated sympathy for Snowden as a story like this should. Where I fault the film is in stupid mistakes that could have been avoided with minimal research or fact checking. A prime example are all the basic training scenes where Snowden answers an Army Drill Sergeant by calling him sir. Absolute fail. Asking any of the vets at the any of the guilds (WGA, SAG, DGA, etc - including the craft services) about the use of "sir" in the various services would have cleared up this distracting mistake (an enlisted soldier is never called sir, while and enlisted Marine may be). There are many other factually inaccurate issues as well that only affect the story because they become a distraction. The distractions lower score of an otherwise really good film.