Snowden (2016)

Quite the thriller, this biopic of the whistleblower who exposed the NSA's wiretaps of random US citizens has high production values, a lot of information, and portrays Snowden as a patriot and a hero. But what would you expect from director/co-writer Oliver Stone (last blogged for Savages), a Vietnam vet turned anti-war activist?

Joseph Gordon-Levitt (most recently in The Walk) is masterful as the title character and Shailene Woodley (last in The Spectacular Now) is sweet as his love interest Lindsay. As usual with Stone's work, there are dozens of quality actors, including Rhys Ifans (The Amazing Spider-Man), Nicolas Cage (Kick-Ass), Melissa Leo (Prisoners), Zachary Quinto (Star Trek Into Darkness), Ben Schnetzer (Pride) as the guy who calls Snowden "Snow White," and Keith Stanfield AKA Lakeith Lee Stanfield (small parts in Selma, Dope, Straight Outta Compton, and Miles Ahead, and co-stars as comic relief Darius in the current FX series Atlanta).

This is the second feature for Stone's co-writer Kieran Fitzgerald after The Homesman. The script chugs along but we laypeople could have done with slightly less data and some minutes cut from the 2:14 running time. The aforementioned production values are due at least in part to the cinematography by Anthony Dod Mantle (last in these pages for Trance).

I'm listening to tracks from the movie by Craig Armstrong and Adam Peters--I started on this link with autoplay on.

Stay in your seat during the credits for some news footage of the actual Ed Snowden. Critics do not love this two days after its wide release, averaging 58% on Rotten Tomatoes, but audiences are fonder at 72. We thought it pretty good.

Note: This is going on my list of movies that can trigger motion picture motion sickness or MPMS. See the complete list here. It's not constant, but there are places, so sit in the last row.