A cold and rather banal addition to Oliver Stone's filmography.

Rating: 4/10 (14 September 2016)

Snowden tells the story we already know so much about and yet, the film treats it as if we know nothing. Oliver Stone's latest political protest of a film results in a ridiculously boring and rather banal addition to his once colorful but now lackluster filmography. The film starts by introducing exactly who Edward Snowden really is. He is a solider, a genius, and someone who, very much so, cares about his country. He is eventually hired by the NSA and the rest is history. First off, the film does nothing for Snowden other than paint him as more a patriot than anything. All personal opinions of the man aside, I'm strictly judging the character in the film. Even then, this film paints him as more a patriot than Clint Eastwood did for Chris Kyle. It becomes ham-fisted in its delivery and ends up really making for a cold film especially after what happens to him. Rather than going into what makes this film the way it is, I'll put it very simply: the film is not very good. The film is not good as a biopic and it is even worse as a political thriller. What starts off as possibly giving us, at the very least, an entertaining neo-political thriller it quickly turns into an assault on the US government. Again, I'm far from willing to interject a personal opinion in this but my opinion on the film is that it feels as though Oliver Stone wanted to make an anti-political propaganda film that is dressed up like a thriller. That is exactly what you will get when seeing this film. It does nothing in the way of expanding dramatically on the far superior CitizenFour and it does nothing to keep you engaged as the runtime slowly ticks by, giving nothing to the audience in the way of the audacious film that we deserve on such a hot button subject matter such as Edward Snowden. Now, with that being said, there is some good in the film. The performances here I found to be quite solid. Shailene Woodley gives a very good performance as Lindsay Mills, Edward Snowden's curious and worrisome girlfriend. Joseph Gordon-Levitt gives a fine performance as Snowden but more so nails down his voice rather than his look and mannerisms, both of which came off as parody- esque to me. The supporting cast is filled to the brim here, starring Melissa Leo, Zachary Quinto, Rhys Ifans and Nicholas Cage to name a few. Each of the supporting cast members give their best with what they're dealt with. Cage is also a very good (and very brief) side actor that almost steals the film, not because he is particularly ground breaking in the film but because it is Nicholas Cage. If anything, it felt distracting but I didn't mind with all things considering. By the time the film ended, it left me with nothing more than the feeling of being watched. It won't let you feel the drama or the weight of it all, it will leave you beaten down in the worst way because it feels like the equivalent of two people having a heated political debate in ear shot of you and all you want to do is tell them to "shut the f- up". Overall, Snowden is a lop-sided political thriller wearing its agenda on its sleeve, reeking of the very idea that Oliver Stone never had the best interests of the film at heart. If you are a hardcore fan of Oliver Stone or if you have never seen Citizenfour then Snowden might be a safe bet for you, otherwise, this is merely a rental at best.