SNOWDEN: THE WASTE OF AN INTERESTING STORY

Snowden, released in 2016, tells the story of the eponym hacker. A storytelling and some cliché that really takes us out of the important message behind a poor realization.

Snowden, this biographic movie about Edward Snowden, directed by Oliver Stone. The same Oliver Stone that gave us the cinematic master piece: Platoon. The director is faithful towards his past mediocrity. The movie talks about Edward Snowden a former hacker who worked for the CIA. The movie begins with a foreshadowing, in a hotel he arranged an appointment with some journalists to reveal everything about the CIA. A flashback during his interview and his story begins, how original. He was in the military but an injury took him out of his dream about serving his country. His life will took a turn when he met in his early life as a programmer Corbin O’Brian, his deputy director. While he was working in this department, deviant methods questioned him about the legitimacy of his work. The young hacker discovered that the CIA had access to the entire planet’s electronic devises. Those processes had impact on his health. His girlfriend was pretty upset when his condition was deteriorating, she didn’t know a thing about his work. Snowden kept her in the secret to protect her, he knows a lot about the CIA’s methods. At this point he decides to reveal everything to the world. The movie takes us back in the hotel room with Snowden and the journalists. The entire country is searching for him, he decides to take a flight to Moscow and hide from the US government. Today he is still in Russia, his girlfriend joined him and they live there. That’s how the movie ends.

This movie is in the continuity of Stone’s movie. He romanticize a serious subject. The fact is that the end of the movie I felt like I saw an imaginary story. The movie is more about Snowden and how he feels and how his girlfriend feels and how his co-worker feels and bla-bla-bla. This movie doesn’t respect the work of Edward Snowden. His implication, the risk that he took, all this has been thrown away by Stone. At the end we have a love story that takes half of the movie, clichés that takes us out of the movie. For example, there is a scene at the end of the movie when Snowden speaks with Corbin O’Brian and he appears on a big screen in an empty room. We are not in Man In Black… The scenography is also really typical for a movie released in 2016. We are not in the early 2000 anymore Mr. Stone, if the movie was released in this era it would be an absolute must see. But today the movie is just blending in the other biography made at the same period. Nonetheless I recommend this movie. The story of Snowden is very interesting and must be known. The storytelling is not highlighting the work of his protagonist.