Obama should have pardoned Snowden on our behalf

Rating: 9/10 (22 January 2017)

I'm so sorry I didn't make the time to see it while it was playing in theaters. I suppose I shied away from being any more jacked up about our intelligence communities than I already was. But now with the election behind us and with the possibility of Snowden being pardoned having just passed, I could summon up the courage to see a work of political art that might send me into a deep depression.
I'm not depressed having seen it now, but I am incensed. Perhaps there's been some poetic license taken but I've no doubt it's minor and beside the point. The argument is well made that Washington has gone too far and that Snowden's acts were more than warranted. The best analogy I can think of for the core issue is a father wanting to keep his daughter safe by locking her in her room. Does it work? Yes. But should any red- blooded American girl allow it? No. It's tantamount to a denial of her fundamental right to a life of her own making. Oliver Stone has given expression to the millions of progressives who have applauded the supposedly treasonous acts of Edward Snowden and in a lot of ways this is his greatest career accomplishment yet.
As a movie, the first half is fairly miraculous given the technical nature of the action. Nevertheless, what is going on is made elegantly and unmistakably clear by a score of brilliantly constructed scenes. And every established actor, and there are quite a few, seems further elevated by their inclusion in this politically risky, but near heroic, work. The second half is less impressive, but that's mostly because of the real-life, mindless acts of our elected and appointed officials.
If there's a bad side to all this, it does shed an unfavorable, but accurate, light on Obama's administration, and there's little appetite for that given our recent election.