Netflix it while you hack your girlfriend's computer while she's in the room.

Rating: 7/10 (26 September 2016)

**Spoilers** I've been a Joseph Gordon-Levitt fan since Third Rock from the Sun and he continues to expand his range with his pitch perfect performance of Ed Snowden. Oliver selected some excellent supporting cast members such as Zachary Quinto(Star Trek), Tom Wilkinson(Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) and Timothy Olyphant(Deadwood) to name a few. Their performances unfortunately are forced to take a back seat to Nick Cage's brief but memorable performance. Whether you're a Cage fan or not, he draws you in with his mannerisms and for this tiny role he seemed to add a fair amount of flair including wafting cigarette smoke, having semi-bloodshot eyes, slamming beers and having gained weight as well. The script worked well enough but the pacing and effects seemed strained. Honestly I was surprised that this was an Oliver Stone film since it used rather cliché elements such as random mirrors placed nearby when Ed was in key decision making moments. Also the steam rising up clouding Ed's glasses while his stressful thoughts consumed him felt much like a film student's graduate project.
Not much creative risk taking being done in the making of this movie but the writers are betting on the fact that the magnitude of domestic espionage will scare the viewer into wanting to endure a long and rather two dimensional reveal of the deterioration of American's privacy and the ability to blackmail key power figures at home and across the globe based on the information collected. Like the atomic blast at the end of Predator, Oliver submits to using the real Ed to sing the song of freedom at the end and in a rather cringy way had fifty extras do a standing ovation to Ed's speech before the credits hit with a clunk. Netflix it while you hack your girlfriend's computer while she's in the room.