When Oliver Stone took on the story of controversial figure and former CIA employee Edward Snowden, it was sure to be, at the very least, something worth taking a glance at. Even more so when he got Joseph Gordon-Levitt to play the guy. This trailer certainly seems more squarely pro-Snowden than W. was anti-Bush, and there’s a lot of mileage to be had from both the cloak-and-dagger process of actually leaking the information and Snowden’s post-scandal paranoia well-documented in Laura Poitras’ CITIZENFOUR.
I don’t know how I forgot CAGE was going to be in this thing, and there’s definitely a question of how big of a part he’ll actually have, but I can’t pretend I didn’t get excited when I realized he was playing one of Snowden’s higher-ups. Cage has worked with Stone once before, on WORLD TRADE CENTER, and I hope he gets something to actually do in the film instead of merely grace it with his presence.
Gordon-Levitt looks absolutely terrific as Snowden, getting the voice and the mannerisms down pretty cold, as well as the hyper-intelligence and gung-ho patriotism that landed him access to some of the deepest holes in the NSA database (this will be an interesting companion piece with Stone’s BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY, another story of a former uber-patriot who ends up protesting the very thing he himself was a part of). Even in films that don’t work, like THE WALK, Gordon-Levitt still seems immersed and magnetic in his roles, and with Stone and this subject matter, the stage is set for what could his best performance yet.
Stone’s done far more right than wrong, by my estimation, and this is as much in his wheelhouse as anything he’s directed in the past two decades. No matter where you stand on the issue of whether Snowden is a national hero, a traitor, or something in between, the director’s take on his story with Gordon-Levitt as his lead actor is still likely an exciting proposition, and this trailer makes it seem like that’s exactly what the film will ultimately be.
SNOWDEN Tells The Truth(!) on September 16th.
