Fifty-fifty

Rating: 7/10 (11 October 2016)

Having little knowledge about the facts surrounding the Snowden controversy, this film does a good job at showing the rise and fall of Snowden. While I appreciate that the filmmakers made this film (I'm surprised there was no move to stop it from being made), it does incorporate an extensive amount of American propaganda.
Gordon-Levitt does an absolutely amazing portrayal of Snowden. Not only does his look change (Gordon-Levitt as an actor vanishes as the movie goes on), but the way in which he trained himself to imitate Snowden's speech is incredible. While it isn't exactly 100% the same, it is quite close. Woodley as Snowden's girlfriend (this is a very man heavy film) is quite annoying. I don't mean Woodley herself, but the way her character is presented really set me off. Maybe the real Lindsay is like that, but the way the film made her out to be such a dumb blonde really peeved me. Even after first establishing that she knows a bit of code, and HTML, they just make her redundant, and solely an object of desire for the protagonist.
Additionally, while I like how the film is organized in its storytelling, there was too much American propaganda added towards the end. After displaying all the outrageous things organizations are able to do with the click of a button, the movie doesn't hold them accountable. They aren't portrayed as the bad guys, even though they are saying that these organizations should not be crossing those lines. Instead, they are saying that this happens, and that the public should be aware about it. But, that they still love their country.
Another thing that really made me question the credibility of the whole fiasco, was the ending scenes with the real Snowden just posing in front of the camera. For a long time. In different angles. Turns out he might be an attention seeker after all.