Snowden (2016)
Directed by Oliver Stone
CIA employee Edward Snowden leaks thousands of classified documents to the press.
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In this case, young Edward (Gordon-Levitt replicating the real Snowden’s affectless, robotic voice), distinguishes himself as the star pupil of Corbin O’Brian (Rhys Ifans, shadowy and sinister), a composite CIA figure who shares a similar surname with O’Brien, the Thought Policeman of George Orwell’s “1984.”
And thanks to cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle who gives the proceedings a competent, but overtly obvious visual nod to 1984.
And a great, if slightly over-the-top scene in which - in a direct nod to "1984" - an interrogating O'Brien appears on a huge video screen.
Snowden is an immediate success at his work, receiving encouragement from both company man O’Brian (whose surname recalls the sinister “O’Brien” in George Orwell’s 1984) and the eccentric Hank Forrester (played hammily by Nicholas Cage; the character may be based on William Binney), who has a thing for old code machines and apparently no duties other than dusting them.
That name is probably a wink in the direction of Orwell's 1984, where the main antagonist was O'Brien.
Já mais tarde, quando Snowden conversa com seu mentor, que questiona suas atitudes, Stone retrata o superior (Ifans) como uma presença gigantesca em uma tela que domina a sala, evocando a imagem icônica do Big Brother de 1984 (e tampouco é coincidência que este personagem – fictício – se chame O’Brien, completando a referência ao remeter ao agente da Polícia do Pensamento do livro de Orwell).
This story itself was more journalistically told in Laura Poitras ’ Academy Award-winning documentary “Citizenfour,” a fact that Stone seems to acknowledge, making Poitras a key character and leaving a clear trail for viewers to find her work.
Of course Snowden’s story is by now pretty familiar from news reportage and from Laura Poitras’ Oscar-winning documentary, Citizenfour.
Audiences who are already familiar with Citizenfour , Laura Poitras’s exemplary documentary on the same subject, will be struck by the fact that, in dramatising Snowden’s story, Stone seems to have leached out much of the drama.
What Oliver Stone's muddled biopic does best is remind you to revisit Citizenfour.
Anyone who has watched “Citizenfour,” which earned the Oscar for Best Documentary for 2014, will recognize the meeting that Stone recreates.
It's a perpetual tale of innocence lost: The wounded warrior turning to anti-war activism (Born on the Fourth of July), the inspiring President felled by conspirators in Dallas (JFK), the hungry trader consumed by a rigged financial system (Wall Street).
Like the best Stone films—“Platoon,” “Born on the Fourth of July,” “Wall Street”—“Snowden” is the story of a young idealist who suffers a moral crisis compounded by Oedipal fury against the father figure in whom he has lost faith.
And that’s a problem for this filmmaker, somewhat more comfortable with ‘Nam (Platoon, Born On The Fourth Of July, Heaven & Earth), rock and roll (The Doors), the Kennedy assassination (JFK), serial killers (Natural Born Killers), 9/11 (World Trade Center) and drug-related chainsaw murders (Savages).
Like most Oliver Stone pictures, it’s a parable of disillusionment, with Edward Snowden taking his place along Born On The Fourth Of July’s Ron Kovic and JFK’s Jim Garrison as men who love their country so much they risk everything by speaking out to try and save it from itself.
By tackling the story of Edward Snowden, the conservative, buttoned-up CIA analyst and self-proclaimed patriot who blew the whistle on the U.S. government’s massive surveillance of its own citizens, Stone places himself solidly back in the kind of territory he mined so brilliantly in some of his very best films: JFK, Born on the Fourth of July and Nixon.
It’s a classic political conversion narrative, not unlike Stone’s Born on the Fourth of July and even Wall Street.
Whether you think the real Edward Snowden is a traitor or a patriot, “Snowden” is a terrific film — and director Oliver Stone’s best since “JFK” (1991).
Just know that he has a subject he cares about, a budget to execute his vision and the kinetic scriptwriting matched with narrative momentum that made films such as “Salvador,” “Platoon” and “JFK” so memorable.
It's a perpetual tale of innocence lost: The wounded warrior turning to anti-war activism (Born on the Fourth of July), the inspiring President felled by conspirators in Dallas (JFK), the hungry trader consumed by a rigged financial system (Wall Street).
“Snowden,” which Stone and co-writer Kieran Fitzgerald adapted from two books about the real-life figure, turns out to be a relatively straightforward, sober-minded, even somewhat restrained film, a far more classical and conventional piece of filmmaking than the kaleidoscopic, conspiracy-minded “ JFK ” or the Shakespearean gloom of “ Nixon .”
It’s Oliver Stone’s best film since "JFK."
Just know that he has a subject he cares about, a budget to execute his vision and the kinetic scriptwriting matched with narrative momentum that made films such as “Salvador,” “Platoon” and “JFK” so memorable.
He told it directly in the semi-autobiographical Platoon, the first in a trilogy about the Vietnam War, but it's always been the filter through which he views America, where the official story is never the true one.
Like the best Stone films—“Platoon,” “Born on the Fourth of July,” “Wall Street”—“Snowden” is the story of a young idealist who suffers a moral crisis compounded by Oedipal fury against the father figure in whom he has lost faith.
From Salvador and Wall Street to Platoon and JFK, his movies are deeply political affairs that set forth a charged ideological agenda in hope of influencing the public debate.
And that’s a problem for this filmmaker, somewhat more comfortable with ‘Nam (Platoon, Born On The Fourth Of July, Heaven & Earth), rock and roll (The Doors), the Kennedy assassination (JFK), serial killers (Natural Born Killers), 9/11 (World Trade Center) and drug-related chainsaw murders (Savages).
While it’s well acted and the director puts several welcome thriller touches on the inherently dull computer world, Snowden (** out of four; rated R; in theaters Friday) just doesn’t have the signature chutzpah or engrossing nature that Stone’s infused in his more high-profile and controversial projects (Platoon, JFK, Natural Born Killers).
“Snowden,” which Stone and co-writer Kieran Fitzgerald adapted from two books about the real-life figure, turns out to be a relatively straightforward, sober-minded, even somewhat restrained film, a far more classical and conventional piece of filmmaking than the kaleidoscopic, conspiracy-minded “ JFK ” or the Shakespearean gloom of “ Nixon .”
By tackling the story of Edward Snowden, the conservative, buttoned-up CIA analyst and self-proclaimed patriot who blew the whistle on the U.S. government’s massive surveillance of its own citizens, Stone places himself solidly back in the kind of territory he mined so brilliantly in some of his very best films: JFK, Born on the Fourth of July and Nixon.
There is none of the colour and bravura of his other true-life films from JFK to Nixon to W, via The Doors.
First came 2008’s W., a spiritual sequel to Nixon; then came 2010’s Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, a literal sequel to Wall Street; most recently was 2012’s Savages, a rather desperate attempt to recapture the extremity of Natural Born Killers.
Just as Clint Eastwood was a slam-dunk of a choice to direct “Sully,” who better (or in some eyes, worse) than master filmmaker/agitator/conspiracy theorist/rebel Oliver Stone (“Born on the Fourth of July,” “JFK,” “Nixon,” “W.,”) to helm the story of the twentysomething techno-whiz who leaked thousands of classified documents in the name of exposing the NSA for trampling on the rights of its citizens?
It's a perpetual tale of innocence lost: The wounded warrior turning to anti-war activism (Born on the Fourth of July), the inspiring President felled by conspirators in Dallas (JFK), the hungry trader consumed by a rigged financial system (Wall Street).
Like the best Stone films—“Platoon,” “Born on the Fourth of July,” “Wall Street”—“Snowden” is the story of a young idealist who suffers a moral crisis compounded by Oedipal fury against the father figure in whom he has lost faith.
From Salvador and Wall Street to Platoon and JFK, his movies are deeply political affairs that set forth a charged ideological agenda in hope of influencing the public debate.
It’s a classic political conversion narrative, not unlike Stone’s Born on the Fourth of July and even Wall Street.
At his best, Oliver Stone directed films that provided audiences with an immersive experience in an unfamiliar world—Platoon (1986) and Wall Street (1987) being two of the finest examples of his art (Stone won an Oscar for directing Platoon, and another in 1989 for Born on the Fourth of July).
First came 2008’s W., a spiritual sequel to Nixon; then came 2010’s Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, a literal sequel to Wall Street; most recently was 2012’s Savages, a rather desperate attempt to recapture the extremity of Natural Born Killers.
And that’s a problem for this filmmaker, somewhat more comfortable with ‘Nam (Platoon, Born On The Fourth Of July, Heaven & Earth), rock and roll (The Doors), the Kennedy assassination (JFK), serial killers (Natural Born Killers), 9/11 (World Trade Center) and drug-related chainsaw murders (Savages).
(The only time it’s ever worked was in Natural Born Killers but I thought that was supposed to be a joke.)
But this is the kind of material that almost demands a return to the kaleidoscopic, paranoid, overwhelming informational assault of movies like JFK and Natural Born Killers, films that felt like waking fever dreams.
While it’s well acted and the director puts several welcome thriller touches on the inherently dull computer world, Snowden (** out of four; rated R; in theaters Friday) just doesn’t have the signature chutzpah or engrossing nature that Stone’s infused in his more high-profile and controversial projects (Platoon, JFK, Natural Born Killers).
The movie doesn’t have the kaleidoscopic dazzle of Stone’s great ’90s films (“JFK,” “Natural Born Killers”), but it has his heady propulsive fever.
First came 2008’s W., a spiritual sequel to Nixon; then came 2010’s Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, a literal sequel to Wall Street; most recently was 2012’s Savages, a rather desperate attempt to recapture the extremity of Natural Born Killers.
Just know that he has a subject he cares about, a budget to execute his vision and the kinetic scriptwriting matched with narrative momentum that made films such as “Salvador,” “Platoon” and “JFK” so memorable.
From Salvador and Wall Street to Platoon and JFK, his movies are deeply political affairs that set forth a charged ideological agenda in hope of influencing the public debate.
I was drawn to films he had written, and when he made the jump to directing full-time with the back-to-back accomplishment of Salvador and Platoon, it was exhilarating.
This should not come as a surprise from the man who wears his liberal heart on his sleeve and created such films as “Salvador,” “Platoon,” “Born on the 4th of July” and “JFK.”
The new film from Oliver Stone, marking a comeback for the filmmaker (“Salvador,” “Platoon,” “Wall Street,” “Natural Born Killers”), presents Snowden unconditionally as a hero, risking everything — his career, his relationship and his freedom — to expose what he believes is an illegal and unconstitutional breach of law by the CIA and NSA, where he works as a computer expert during the war in Iraq.
“Snowden” manages to be as entertaining and informative as you would expect from the filmmaker responsible for “Salvador,” “Platoon,” “Wall Street,” and “JFK.”
Your mileage my vary, but I have to go all the way back to 1999’s Any Given Sunday to find a really great feature that bore his name, and after the loud flop of Alexander (a movie he’s recut and re-released into approximately forty-seven different version) and the odd detour of World Trade Center, he began what looks like a campaign, conscious or not, to recreate his past successes.
Some of his best works (JFK, Nixon, and even Any Given Sunday, his take on the NFL) have taken real stories of shadowy abuses of power and blown them up to operatic proportions.
The film doesn't feel as if it was shot out of a cannon, like his raucous '90s output (best being the wildly indulgent "Natural Born Killers," worst being the gassy, overbearing "Any Given Sunday").
He takes a firm stance with "Snowden," his best feature film since 1999's "Any Given Sunday."
Stone followed Natural Born Killers with the very good Nixon , another portrait of an American icon, and then went on to make a handful of sometimes interesting but lesser films — the bonkers genre flicks U-Turn and Savages , the football exposé Any Given Sunday , the Bush-biopic W. , the respectful 9/11 drama World Trade Center .
In the case of “Snowden,” however, most of them do, making this biopic/thriller the director’s most consistent movie he’s made since 1999’s “Any Given Sunday.”
Of course the caveat that goes along with that statement is that his resume since 2000 includes films like Alexander, World Trade Center, W. and Savages, a frustrating filmography that found the director basically working as a shadow of his former self.
From amnesia-inducing Alexander to a broken-beyond-bad take on pot kingpins, Savages, Oliver Stone’s been gathering a lot worse than moss as he’s been rolling along lately.
While it lacks the emotional wallop or technical prowess of Stone's revered projects from the 1980s and '90s (Platoon, JFK and many more), it at least finds the controversial filmmaker shakily getting back on his feet following a post-Y2K resume that includes the disastrous likes of Alexander, W., Savages, and that Wall Street sequel with Shia LaBeouf.
In the past 36 years he’s made a criminally underrated horror flick (The Hand), a trilogy of increasingly thoughtful Vietnam war movies (Platoon, Born on the Fourth of July, Heaven & Earth), a “musical” (The Doors), historical epics (Alexander, Nixon), a sports film (Any Given Sunday), a love story (World Trade Center), business pictures (the two Wall Street movies), and a trilogy comprised of the some audacious and darkly funny crime movies (Natural Born Killers, U-Turn, Savages).
Of course the caveat that goes along with that statement is that his resume since 2000 includes films like Alexander, World Trade Center, W. and Savages, a frustrating filmography that found the director basically working as a shadow of his former self.
He has made films that bent over backwards to be topical, like the earnest and sentimental 9/11 requiem “World Trade Center,” or the goofy provocative political cartoon “W.,” or the cautionary-but-behind-the-curve financial thriller “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps.”
When his film “World Trade Center” about the brave members of the New York Fire Dept.
Your mileage my vary, but I have to go all the way back to 1999’s Any Given Sunday to find a really great feature that bore his name, and after the loud flop of Alexander (a movie he’s recut and re-released into approximately forty-seven different version) and the odd detour of World Trade Center, he began what looks like a campaign, conscious or not, to recreate his past successes.
Though Snowden is Stone's third film to address the events or aftermath of September 11—2006's World Trade Center and 2008's engrossing but muddled Bush portrait W came first—it draws on an old formula, one the filmmaker developed in 1989's Vietnam classic Born on the Fourth of July: A young man (it's always a man) has lofty ideals about serving his country, enlists in some arm of the government or military and winds up disillusioned and disgusted with the myriad corruptions of the System.
Stone followed Natural Born Killers with the very good Nixon , another portrait of an American icon, and then went on to make a handful of sometimes interesting but lesser films — the bonkers genre flicks U-Turn and Savages , the football exposé Any Given Sunday , the Bush-biopic W. , the respectful 9/11 drama World Trade Center .
In the past 36 years he’s made a criminally underrated horror flick (The Hand), a trilogy of increasingly thoughtful Vietnam war movies (Platoon, Born on the Fourth of July, Heaven & Earth), a “musical” (The Doors), historical epics (Alexander, Nixon), a sports film (Any Given Sunday), a love story (World Trade Center), business pictures (the two Wall Street movies), and a trilogy comprised of the some audacious and darkly funny crime movies (Natural Born Killers, U-Turn, Savages).
And that’s a problem for this filmmaker, somewhat more comfortable with ‘Nam (Platoon, Born On The Fourth Of July, Heaven & Earth), rock and roll (The Doors), the Kennedy assassination (JFK), serial killers (Natural Born Killers), 9/11 (World Trade Center) and drug-related chainsaw murders (Savages).
I didn’t enjoy this film as much as “The Doors,” but Edward Snowden is no Jim Morrison.
And that’s a problem for this filmmaker, somewhat more comfortable with ‘Nam (Platoon, Born On The Fourth Of July, Heaven & Earth), rock and roll (The Doors), the Kennedy assassination (JFK), serial killers (Natural Born Killers), 9/11 (World Trade Center) and drug-related chainsaw murders (Savages).
(He even visualizes some of the hacks like acid trips from The Doors.)
There is none of the colour and bravura of his other true-life films from JFK to Nixon to W, via The Doors.
Woodley is saddled with a role familiar to fans of Stone’s films: The Woman Who Alternately Supports Her Heroic Man But Also Gets In His Way But Ends Up Being The Moral Compass But Not Until She Has Cried A Lot. (See also: Sissy Spacek in JFK, Kyra Sedgwick in Born on the Fourth of July, Meg Ryan in The Doors, even Joan Allen in Nixon.
Stone, who tends toward volatile male leads — “The Doors”, “Natural Born Killers” — griped during the shoot how hard it was to make a heroic figure out of such a “robot nerd.”
That personal bond may be why - after a few misfires, including the trashy "Savages" and superfluous "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps" - the director seems confident and relaxed here.
This soft spot crippled Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps and did a number on the otherwise awesome Savages.
He has made films that bent over backwards to be topical, like the earnest and sentimental 9/11 requiem “World Trade Center,” or the goofy provocative political cartoon “W.,” or the cautionary-but-behind-the-curve financial thriller “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps.”
Unfortunately, in movie terms the 1980s were a long time ago, and Stone’s more recent films have ranged from total misfires (Alexander, 2004) to passable but not great (Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, 2010).
First came 2008’s W., a spiritual sequel to Nixon; then came 2010’s Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, a literal sequel to Wall Street; most recently was 2012’s Savages, a rather desperate attempt to recapture the extremity of Natural Born Killers.
That said, with World Trade Centre , Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps and Savages among his recent output, Snowden is his best film in some time, as well as his most topical.
That personal bond may be why - after a few misfires, including the trashy "Savages" and superfluous "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps" - the director seems confident and relaxed here.
And that’s a problem for this filmmaker, somewhat more comfortable with ‘Nam (Platoon, Born On The Fourth Of July, Heaven & Earth), rock and roll (The Doors), the Kennedy assassination (JFK), serial killers (Natural Born Killers), 9/11 (World Trade Center) and drug-related chainsaw murders (Savages).
Of course the caveat that goes along with that statement is that his resume since 2000 includes films like Alexander, World Trade Center, W. and Savages, a frustrating filmography that found the director basically working as a shadow of his former self.
First came 2008’s W., a spiritual sequel to Nixon; then came 2010’s Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, a literal sequel to Wall Street; most recently was 2012’s Savages, a rather desperate attempt to recapture the extremity of Natural Born Killers.
This soft spot crippled Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps and did a number on the otherwise awesome Savages.
But he had less fun with W., his George W. Bush opus that had a strange, chummy affection for its protagonist, and in recent years he’s seem lost, making a pointless Wall Street sequel in 2010 and the grimy, unmemorable drug-runner drama Savages in 2012.
Many of Stone's most memorable films have been about real people — including Nixon, W., JFK and The People vs. Larry Flynt.
While it lacks the emotional wallop or technical prowess of Stone's revered projects from the 1980s and '90s (Platoon, JFK and many more), it at least finds the controversial filmmaker shakily getting back on his feet following a post-Y2K resume that includes the disastrous likes of Alexander, W., Savages, and that Wall Street sequel with Shia LaBeouf.
He signs up to the CIA and excels at the tests he’s given, proving himself so capable that he becomes a lynchpin for the intelligence team, a sequence that feels like Stone trying to force a parallel between Snowden and Alan Turing – or at least Benedict Cumberbatch’s portrayal of Turing in The Imitation Game .
Gordon-Levitt’s Snowden is more like Alan Turing, the brilliant but socially inept Second World War computer pioneer portrayed in The Imitation Game.
Here, instead, Snowden (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) recalls CIA-training—clichéd spy-mentor moments and computer prodigy scenes, playing like The Imitation Game updated to the ’00s, ensue.
He ends up joining the CIA -- under the tutelage of an instructor (Rhys Ifans) and supervisor (Nic Cage) -- and much like Benedict Cumberbatch's Alan Turing did in "The Imitation Game" proves his intellect and problem solving are unparalleled.
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He was a high school dropout who fancied Star Wars, Joseph Campbell and Ayn Rand.
Hammy supporting performances abound (Rhys Ifans, Nicolas Cage, Timothy Olyphant), along with puzzling visual choices that venture close to self-parody on Stone’s part (trippy depictions of Snowden’s epilepsy), with some hilariously on-the-nose political discourse lobbed in for good measure (a college-aged Snowden lists his big inspirations as “Star Wars” and Ayn Rand).
Much like “Flags of Our Fathers,” director Clint Eastwood is back to compare our conceptions of heroism with time and additional illuminating facts.
It’s a liberal companion to Clint Eastwood ’s almost equally strong “American Sniper,” both movies that choose a point of view over uncertain hand-wringing.
(His words are simply another iteration of the “you can’t handle the truth” speech from A Few Good Men.)
Not surprisingly (considering his track record), Stone goes for the latter portrayal, and maybe that's why he never offers up a powerful counterpoint moment as occurred with Jack Nicholson's "you can't handle the truth" speech from "A Few Good Men."
At times Stone hurts his own cause, whether it’s a scene where Snowden’s beloved mentor O’Brian appears on a giant screen during a Facetime call, a la Big Brother, or the irritating score that swells up as if Snowden is Roy Hobbs in “The Natural,” swinging for the fences because he loves his country, gosh dang it.
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In comparison to Michael Mann’s “The Insider”; which similarly used the cinematic lexicon of the conspiracy thrillers of 1970s (“Network”, “3 Days of the Condor”, “All the Presidents Men”) and ultimately packed a resounding punch.
But Snowden doesn’t have to be the movie we expect it to be ‐ another Blackhat or The Insider (maybe Michael Mann should have made a competing Snowden biopic?).
Several times throughout, longing memories of Michael Mann's underappreciated 2015 cyber-suspenser " Blackhat " drifted to minda significantly more dynamic and visually exciting film touching upon similar themes.
But Snowden doesn’t have to be the movie we expect it to be ‐ another Blackhat or The Insider (maybe Michael Mann should have made a competing Snowden biopic?).
The aim was clearly to create an All the President’s Men for the age of cyber-surveillance.
“Snowden” fits into to fact-based political thrillers like “All the President’s Men.”
As an old Sixties lefty brought up on paranoia-infused thrillers like The Parallax View or All the President's Men, Oliver Stone loves ripping open great American conspiracies.
Instead, he adopts a more realistic (and relatively straightforward) approach, following in the tradition of other excellent films about recent historical events like All the President’s Men and The Social Network—yet his is a less linear narrative than those films, and a more visually expressionistic one.
As an old Sixties lefty brought up on paranoia-infused thrillers like The Parallax View or All the President's Men, Oliver Stone loves ripping open great American conspiracies.
Gordon-Levitt, however, nails the part completely, physically hunching down into himself and getting Snowden’s halting, thoughtful speech patterns just right, while Stone, working with screenwriter Kieran Fitzgerald, creates a whirlwind ride nearly but not quite worthy of The Parallax View-era conspiracy thrillers.