Turning a whistleblowing geek into a hi-tech martyr
WHETHER you rush to see Oliver Stone’s portentous, agendadriven, overlong drama about Edward Snowden (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) probably depends on whether you consider the National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower to be a principled hero or an irresponsible traitor.
Stone, of course, adheres firmly to the former view of the man who leaked reams of classified information, lifting the lid on global surveillance operations run by the NSA. Gordon-Levitt portrays Snowden as a shy, bespectacled computer nerd, initially driven by whole-hearted patriotism to join the security services. Stone’s script, co-written with Kieran Fitzgerald, is full of ironic nods at what is to come.
‘Thank you, sir, you won’t regret this,’ he says to his hawkish boss Corbin O’Brian (played with faintly ludicrous, pantomimevillain intensity by Rhys Ifans) when the decision is made to take him on.
Nicolas Cage pops up as a veteran geek at the CIA training centre, and Shailene Woodley does good work as Snowden’s girlfriend, Lindsay. But this is Gordon-Levitt’s show, and, of course, Stone’s.
Together, they make Snowden
look like a reluctant Joan of Arc, a martyr to morality, as gradually he realises the only decent thing to do is tell the world that Uncle Sam is actually a Peeping Tom.
It is, by any measure, a fascinating 21st-century tale. But Stone turns it into Leftist propaganda, not least in a ridiculous scene in which O’Brian looms up on a video link like a gigantic, sinister Big Brother.
To research the film, he and Gordon-Levitt spent time with the real Snowden in Moscow, where the 33-year-old continues to enjoy the protection of a government not exactly known for its own benign transparency.
Needless to say, that’s an inconvenience in the lionising of Snowden that is well and truly sidestepped.