The Snowden Films - Spirit of the Whistleblower

Laura Poitras’ Oscar-winning 2014 documentary Citizenfour captured the precise moment at which Edward Snowden turned whistleblower after quitting his job at the NSA. Is there room for another film on the same subject? Oliver Stone’s fictionalised account, Snowden, would suggest not. 

In effect, it admits defeat from the get-go by using the making of Citizenfour as a framing device, incorporating flashbacks to show what led Snowden to commit the security breach that exposed the extent of US government surveillance. 

Cooped up in a Hong Kong hotel room with him as he spills the beans are Poitras (Melissa Leo) and the Guardian journalists Glenn Greenwald (Zachary Quinto) and Ewen MacAskill (Tom Wilkinson), who put on their best listening faces and try to forget that all of the most interesting scenes are happening in other parts of the film.

What Snowden has in its favour is an economical performance by Joseph Gordon-Levitt which is mysterious without being aloof, cool but never cold. 

The actor gets the voice right (it’s a benign rumble) and though he is physically dissimilar to the real Snowden, that need be no barrier to success: look at Anthony Hopkins in Stone’s Nixon. Gordon-Levitt is absorbed by the role like water vanishing into a sponge. When the real Snowden pops up to stare wistfully off into the distance (there’s a lot of that here), it can’t help but be a let-down. People are so bad at playing themselves, don’t you find?

Gordon-Levitt (pictured) makes Snowden’s motives transparent without ever fully dropping his guard, and it is reassuring that a film in which people are spied on through the webcams of dormant laptops can still have a protagonist who remains essentially unknowable. 

The script, written by Stone and Kieran Fitzgerald, pulls in the opposite direction, allowing every character to deliver a remark of nudging innuendo. 

When Snowden is discharged from the army after injuring himself, a doctor tells him: “There are plenty of other ways to serve your country.” When he is approved for a job at the CIA, Snowden tells his employer: “You won’t regret this.” 

What we have here, give or take the strip club scene in which a pole dancer is filmed from an ungallantly low angle, is a more-sober Stone than the one who made JFK and Natural Born Killers but he still can’t resist giving us a few deafening blasts of the old irony klaxon.

Though we know by now not to expect subtlety, Stone’s storytelling techniques are still surprisingly crude. When Snowden’s girlfriend, Lindsay Shailene Woodley, complains that he has become distant, that he doesn’t touch her any more, the viewer is likely to wonder why that point had to be expressed in soap-opera dialogue rather than, say, action or camera angles. After all, the film was more than happy to throw in a superfluous sex scene when their love life was hunky-dory.

But when Stone does make his points visually, the cringe factor is even higher. He used carnivorous imagery in Nixon, a bloody steak stood in for murder, and the new film doesn’t take the vegetarian option either. Snowden is already starting to be alarmed by surveillance tactics when he goes hunting with his boss, Corbin O’Brian (Rhys Ifans). The pheasants they kill are barbecued in sizzling close-up, providing a buffet of symbolism. Snowden is going to be grilled. His goose is cooked. He’s dead meat.

An early scene showing him establishing contact with Poitras and Greenwald by an exchange of coded phrases, “What time does the restaurant open?” “Noon. But the food is a little spicy”, suggests that Stone intends to have fun with the story’s espionage trappings. 

The movie falls between two stools, however, lacking either the irreverence of satire or the tautness of a well-tooled thriller. At its most effective moments, it floats free of irony and captures a quaint, tactile innocence. 

We see Snowden communicating in sign language with an NSA colleague to avoid being eavesdropped on, or sitting in bed with a blanket over him as he taps away at his laptop. He is only hiding his passwords but he looks for all the world like a kid reading comics by torchlight after his mother has said: “Lights out.”

New Statesman:            Open Access To The Snowden Archive:      Oliver Stone’s Snowden Film:

 

 

« Is Antivirus Software Now Dead?
France Launches a Cyber Warfare Division »

Infosecurity Europe
CyberSecurity Jobsite
Perimeter 81

Directory of Suppliers

North Infosec Testing (North IT)

North Infosec Testing (North IT)

North IT (North Infosec Testing) are an award-winning provider of web, software, and application penetration testing.

Syxsense

Syxsense

Syxsense brings together endpoint management and security for greater efficiency and collaboration between IT management and security teams.

Resecurity

Resecurity

Resecurity is a cybersecurity company that delivers a unified platform for endpoint protection, risk management, and cyber threat intelligence.

CSI Consulting Services

CSI Consulting Services

Get Advice From The Experts: * Training * Penetration Testing * Data Governance * GDPR Compliance. Connecting you to the best in the business.

Infosecurity Europe, 3-5 June 2025, ExCel London

Infosecurity Europe, 3-5 June 2025, ExCel London

This year, Infosecurity Europe marks 30 years of bringing the global cybersecurity community together to further our joint mission of Building a Safer Cyber World.

Ovarro

Ovarro

Ovarro is the new name for Servelec Technologies and Primayer. Ovarro's technology is used throughout the world to monitor, control and manage critical and national infrastructure.

GreatHorn

GreatHorn

GreatHorn offers the only cloud-native security platform that stops targeted social engineering and phishing attacks on communication tools like O365, G Suite, and Slack.

Signifyd

Signifyd

Signifyd is the world's largest provider of Guaranteed e-Commerce Fraud Protection.

StrongKey

StrongKey

StrongKey (formerly StrongAuth) is a leader in Enterprise Key Management Infrastructure, bringing new levels of capability and data security at a price point significantly lower than other solutions.

Asseco Group

Asseco Group

Asseco Poland stands at the forefront of the multinational Asseco Group. We are a leading provider of state-of-the-art IT solutions in Central and Eastern Europe.

Fingent

Fingent

Fingent develops strategic software solutions for businesses across the globe in areas including Network Security, Infrastructure Security, Application Security, Risk and Compliance.

Techleap.nl

Techleap.nl

Techleap.nl is a non-profit publicly funded organisation helping to quantify and accelerate the tech ecosystem of the Netherlands.

Syber Technology

Syber Technology

Syber Technology is an IT project implementer empowering IT systems of Small to Medium Enterprises in the Middle East.

Hawk Network Defense

Hawk Network Defense

HAWK.io is the First Fully Automated, Multi-Tenant, Cloud-Based, MDR Service Company.

Cybeta

Cybeta

Cybeta's actionable cybersecurity intelligence keeps your business safe with strategic and operational security recommendations that prevent breaches.

Advantage

Advantage

Advantage exists to provide peace of mind in an evolving technology reliant world. We were created by visionaries who for nearly 4-decades have been passionate about providing world-class solutions.

Ascent Solutions

Ascent Solutions

Ascent is built to help firms evolve their cybersecurity posture, modernize their Microsoft solutions, and accelerate their journey to the cloud.

Pulsant

Pulsant

Pulsant is the UK’s premier digital edge infrastructure company providing next-generation cloud, colocation and connectivity services.

Velum Labs

Velum Labs

Velum Labs is a cyber intelligence company that provides simple and non-intrusive, cloud and cyber intelligence solutions; built from a market-leading understanding of cyber-attack methodology.

Merkle Science

Merkle Science

Merkle Science provides next generation risk mitigation, compliance and forensics for crypto-native businesses, DeFi participants, financial institutions & government agencies.

Black Belt Secure

Black Belt Secure

We provide critical cybersecurity services such as managed security, ransomware mitigation, penetration testing, system auditing and compliance services to your organization.