Movie review - SNOWDEN

 

Picture source: movies anywhere 

CAST : 

1. Joseph Gordon- Levitt ( playing Edward Snowden)

2. Shailene Woodley ( playing Lindsay Mills)

3. Rhys Ifans ( playing Corbin O'Brian)

4. Scott Eastwood ( playing Trevor)

5. Tom Wilkinson ( playing Ewen MacAskill)

6. Zachary Quinto ( playing Glenn Greenwald)

We first began to ponder the heroism and courage of Edward Snowden, the American whistleblower who worked as a contractor for the National Security Agency.  Interviews with Snowden revealed the immensity of what he had seen and experienced of the secret surveillance state.

Snowden, directed by Oliver Stone, fills in some of the background to this whistleblower's actions. We first see Snowden (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) as an earnest patriot who is inspired to defend America after 9/11. In 2004, he joins the United States Army Rangers, but during training, his physical stamina is found wanting and he badly injures his leg in a fall. Soon afterwards, Snowden decides to devote his life and brilliant computer science talents to the CIA. Scoring very high on a test, he catches the eye of Corbin O'Brian (Rhys Ifans) who decides to make use of this young man's brains and skill set in the war on terrorism. 

In his work for NSA in Hawaii, Snowden tallies up reports indicating that in one month alone in 2013, this agency collected 97 billion pieces of information from computer networks worldwide. At the height of his career, when he is just 29 years old, he decides to download from the NSA computers enough information to tell the world what is really going on.

Watching their conversations, we realize that Snowden has put everything in his life on the line in order to expose the truth about the American surveillance state. Admitting that he left a digital footprint behind so that he would be identified as the source of the leaks, we realize his incredible courage in taking public responsibility for what he has done. 

Watching the multi-layered and complicated story of Snowden's act of whistleblowing gives us an extraordinary opportunity to clarify our values, thoughts, and feelings about the surveillance state. 

The movie ended on a good note and he currently resides in Russia with his girlfriend. 

This movie is aired on : Netflix,  HBO max , Prime Video , Disney +