‘Snowden’ review [TIFF ’16]

Snowden review: Oliver Stone returns for his 30th film – a rather paint-by-numbers affair of the exploits of Edward Snowden, played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

Snowden review by Paul Heath, TIFF ’16.

Oliver Stone returns to the political forefront with this new picture, a ‘dramatisation of true events’ revolving around the exploits of Edward Snowden, the former NSA employee who leaked thousands of classified documents to The Guardian newspaper in 2013.

Taking place over a period of nine years between 2006, when Snowden (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) was attempting to enrol in the special forces, through to 2013, when he fled to Russia seeking political asylum, this ensemble piece, featuring an all-star cast, takes from two different pieces of source material – the books ‘Time Of The Octopus‘ by Anatoly Kucherena and Luke Harding’s ‘The Snowden Files.’ The film is told largely in flashback with Snowden holed up in a Hong Kong hotel, pillows piled up against the door, and telephones placed in microwaves while her recounts his professional life to journalists Glenn Greenwald (Zachary Quinto) and Ewen MacAskill (Tom Wilkinson), as well as documentarian Laura Poitras (Melissa Leo). During the course of 24 hours, Snowden relives his days at the CIA and the NSA, his relationship with girlfriend Lindsay Mills (Shailene Woodley) and the years, months, weeks and days that lead up to his world-changing decision to expose his government and reveal its secrets.

While Stone’s film, his first since the rather lacklustre, and supremely violent 2012 effort The Savages, and indeed his 30th in his long-Hollywood career, isn’t a bad one, it’s far from a great one. Coming across as a rather pain-by-numbers affair, Snowden is a gloriously one-sided affair that fails to paint any new light on its subject matter. Gordon-Levitt is fine in the lead, and Woodley provides firm support as loyal liberal girlfriend Lindsay. With Quinto’s journalist Greenwald, Wilkinson’s MacAskill and Leo’s Poitras (the director if the 2014 documentary Citizenfour), you have quite a decent level of acting heavyweights, all of which bring their end game – even if their prowess isn’t matched by the rather under-developed screenplay. You also have Rhys Ifans as Snowden’s commanding officer at the CIA Corbin O’ Brian, and Nicolas Cage gloriously hamming it up as fallen government genius Hank Forrester, in a rather throw-away performance – appearing in just a handful of scenes.

Snowden’s rather-lite approach, as we said previously, doesn’t give us anything new, so one must question its existence, particularly when you have the presence of Citizenfour, a very detailed documentary which tells you everything that you need to know about its subject matter – and also a film that features heavily, though remains unnamed here.

I didn’t hate the film at all, but I didn’t like it much either – and that’s not the fault of any of the actors really who really do with the material that they are given. Stone’s style is fairly formulaic, though there are hints at his previous outings – notable his choice in using different film stocks (and video footage), and even projected images during the film’s climactic scenes, something so heavily used in his outlandish Natural Born Killers decades ago.

Uneducated viewers of the Snowden story will possibly get more out of this than those familiar with his expose – but judging this movie to the quality of some of Stone’s previous catalogue of politically charged movies (JFK etc.), this one falls way short of the mark.

Snowden review by Paul Heath at the Toronto International Film Festival 2016.

Snowden will be released in the UK TBA.