One of Those Movies that I Really Enjoyed but was Just a Little Too Slow to Fully Enjoy

Rating: 7/10 (11 May 2017)

Snowden follows Edward Snowden as he works for various groups where he handles classified information, when he learns that the government can and is watching just about everyone without them knowing, so he decides to leak the information.
For starters, Joseph Gordon-Levitt is pretty great here. The performance he gives is authentic but still intelligent. He isn't just your generic tech nerd character, he has a personality, and his performance really shows that. Shailene Woodley does a great job as well, though she isn't given quite as much as Gordon-Levitt to work with. The rest of the cast is solid, but they don't get much better than these two.
The writing here is painstakingly thorough. When I say that, it's both a good and a bad thing. On the bright side, the plot and characters are very well fleshed out. And something I loved was that you didn't have to be incredibly smart to understand a lot of the dialogue. The characters didn't use language that was heavily technology-based, so I actually understood the vast majority of the story. The plot wasn't lost in the language, and for a movie like this one that is certainly a welcome aspect of it. As a result of the thorough writing the characters were fairly well fleshed out, adding another level of depth to the movie. When there were tense moments they were actually tense. When something important happened there was weight. I actually cared about the characters. On the down side, however, the writing was so thorough that the movie became somewhat slow. It's one of those movies that you really like or find interesting, but it's just a tad too slow to fully enjoy. I feel like a bit of time could've been shaved off and it would've largely remained the same while still being thorough.
Overall I really enjoyed Snowden. While it was slow almost all throughout, it was thorough and well performed. In the end I would recommend this movie.