
Nothing is as exciting as real life right? So let’s make a drama/thriller out of Edward Snowden’s controversial life choices and watch the money roll in.
Sounds legit after watching the Snowden trailer, which opens in theaters on September 16, 2016. Keep in mind Citizenfour, which won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Picture, only came out two years ago.
Snowden’s story is so well-known at this point that the only interesting aspect left to dramatize to pieces is the internal struggle of Snowden’s patriotic self and the fact that he is betraying his country in the name of the common good. That struggle however is subtle, and this does not look like a subtle movie – if someone had yelled “ ‘MURICA” in the first twenty seconds of the trailer it would’ve fit in.
The trailer starts off with how we know Snowden will end – Snowden on the run in a foreign country. Then we hear my favorite line in the trailer because it concisely shows the guts of who Snowden is: “As far as I can tell, you’ve been walking on two broken legs for weeks.” And the trailer goes on to show how patriotic Snowden is at his core, the shock that Snowden feels at his nation’s betrayal of spying on the general populace, and the emotional, personal, and physical risk he takes by hiding an SD card in a Rubik’s cube (always the sign of a true genius) as this movie’s method of how Snowden smuggled out the info.
It all falls flat. Instead of being moved by the true patriotism of Edward Snowden, the music and sound effects seem overly dramatic and heavy-handed despite what’s going on on-screen. It’s hard to take Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s seriously in this role, although I want to like him – and to be frank about it, here is another major blockbuster about a young white male fighting against the odds for the greater good. The only interesting aspect to the trailer is Snowden’s story, which everyone already knows – there is no additional spice to the same old meat.
This also has to be said: there is a complete lack of diversity. Jolly black security guards do not count as diversity. Also, the only women I see in this trailer are either Snowden’s girlfriend and… nope, just Snowden’s girlfriend (who only exists in relation to Snowden). Unless you count the woman in the webcam, which I don’t.
As someone who walked out of Citizenfour a changed person, I do not want to go see this movie based on the trailer. But I deeply respect the true Edward Snowden – I admire what he did, the bravery that it took, and the personal sacrifices he had to make. Maybe this trailer isn’t indicative of the movie, because there is a story to tell there – let’s just hope Oliver Stone does it justice.
You can check the trailer out below, let us know what you think by commenting below.









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