You'd be correct to expect something bombastic out of Oliver Stone’s Snowden. It’s right in the JFK director’s wheelhouse, dealing in themes of power, corruption, and deeply conflicted American patriotism, with a vast government conspiracy perched on top of the sundae like a poisoned cherry. But surprisingly, Stone takes a calm, almost measured approach in telling the story of Edward Snowden, the defense contractor who blew the whistle on the American government’s theft of its citizens’ private information.
This is likely because the real Edward Snowden never cut a particularly dramatic figure. Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays the soft-spoken, squirrelly computer whiz with the right amount of awkwardness, resisting the bait of Stone’s tendency to turn heroes into martyrs.