Oliver Stone’s new movie about Edward Snowden, the whistleblower whose act of defiance against the Obama administration led to his persecution and exile and awareness of the surveillance state, debuts on September 16.
The title is Snowden. The tagline: “The only safe place is on the run.”
Judging by the polished, paranoia-themed trailer, Snowden will be typical of Stone, the Academy Award®-winning director of Platoon, Alexander, Born on the Fourth of July, JFK, Wall Street and World Trade Center. The trailer looks like it bears his usual marks; creative license apparently taken with what’s known about Snowden’s motives, relationships and life, to the extent this is discernible, Stone’s dark, moody look and an all-star cast including Melissa Leo (The Fighter), Zachary Quinto (Star Trek), Rhys Ifans (The Amazing Spider-Man), Nicolas Cage (Ghost Rider), Tom Wilkinson (Batman Begins), Shailene Woodley of the Divergent series and Joseph Gordon-Levitt (The Walk, Mysterious Skin, Lincoln) as Edward Snowden (watch Snowden‘s trailer here and read my thoughts on Edward Snowden here.)
At least Gordon-Levitt, an excellent actor (he’s marvelous in the exquisite The Walk), is a fine choice as the lead. Also, in this case, unlike leftist Stone’s compelling but flawed JFK, the movie’s apparent subject, the essential story of the man who unmasked the American surveillance state, is, in fact, a conspiracy, by the government’s admission. Snowden is a hero if you think, as I do, that the United States is becoming totally controlled by the state, and a traitor if you believe that the state’s proper role is security regardless of individual rights. What he did, whatever your philosophy, has an undeniable impact on Americans’ lives and liberty, including influence on Apple’s courageous decision to defy the government, and Snowden could be better than Stone’s previous pictures, including Alexander, his mixed and wrongly maligned 2004 movie about Alexander the Great.