'Snowden' Review

Snowden is a dramatic biopic detailing Edward Snowden's decision to leak classified government intelligence that revealed the National Security Administration's illegal surveillance methods and his journey towards that choice.

Oliver Stone directs the film adding another political drama to his filmography about controversial figures in history, dramatizing the real life events quite effectively. The film's best moments were the transitional scenes narrated by Joseph Gordon Levitt's monotone Snowden that championed interesting visualization of website data, media clips, and NSA data collection in order to express what the CIA and NSA were up to at those points in time.

Unfortunately, the screenplay written by Stone and cowriter Kieran Fitzgerald leaned heavily towards Snowden's viewpoint failing to show the other side of that coin and restricting the viewer insight into the real controversial bits of the narrative. Snowden breezes through substantial chunks of Edward Snowden's life in the service and has some odd pacing for the first two-thirds and the non-chronological storytelling adds to the somewhat jarring viewing experience as the film will occasionally jump back to the present day. The screenplay also tosses around some relationship drama between Snowden and his girlfriend which are imperative for the purposes of understanding Snowden and also manage to clout the film, as though there's two different types of narratives within Snowden; a romance and a triller.

Joseph Gordon Levitt provides a very strong lead performance as Edward Snowden and helps the viewer maintain focus in the film's dull moments. Levitt not only looks like Snowden but he manages to mimic his voice quite effectively while expertly portraying Snowden conflicted nature.

Shailene Woodley gives one of her best performances to date as Snowden's girlfriend Lindsay Mills and exemplified great chemistry opposite Levitt. Snowden also features name talent in supporting roles of varying sizes including Rhys Ifans, Nicolas Cage, Tom Wilkinson, Scott Eastwood, and Zachary Quinto who are all great in the capacity used.

In conclusion, Snowden is an insightful and informative look at government surveillance that's both well directed and well performed, but it's one-sided stance cripples the effectiveness of it's message.

Film Assessment: C+