Snowden

Oliver Stone's slick and sycophantic docudrama asks whether whistleblower Edward Snowden is a 21st-century hero or traitor. Those who have seen Laura Poitras's Oscar-winning documentary Citizenfour (VL-9/15) will be familiar with this story, which begins in 2013 when Snowden (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) meets with Poitras (Melissa Leo) and two journalists (Zachary Quinto, Tom Wilkinson) in a Hong Kong hotel. Snowden delivers documents that he smuggled out of his NSA office in Hawaii revealing the U.S. government's massive surveillance program, which encompassed not only American citizens but also overseas contacts. Based on Luke Harding's 2014 book The Snowden Files and Anatoly Kucherena's 2015 tome Time of the Octopus, the film utilizes flashbacks to show how idealistic Snowden enlisted in Special Forces training and was discharged after suffering broken legs. Patriotic, he went into intelligence work, displaying such remarkable skill as a computer analyst before his CIA boss (Rhys Ifans) that he received increasingly higher security clearances, which ultimately led to Snowden's disillusioned and almost-messianic determination to disclose what he discovered. To humanize Snowden, Stone dwells on his romantic relationship with Lindsay Mills (Shailene Woodley). As usual, Stone wears his politics on his sleeve in this somewhat oversimplified Hollywood treatment of a complex story. Optional. [Note: DVD/Blu-ray extras include a Q&A panel discussion with subject Edward Snowden, director Oliver Stone, and costars Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Shailene Woodley (40 min.), deleted scenes (9 min.), a behind-the-scenes segment on “Finding the Truth” (4 min.), and trailers. Exclusive to the Blu-ray release are bonus DVD, digital, and UltraViolet copies of the film. Bottom line: a solid extras package for a so-so bio-pic.] (S. Granger)