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Traitor? Hero? Whatever your feelings regarding Edward Snowden, the Oliver Stone (Platoon) directed biopic of the man responsible for one of the largest, most prolific, whistleblowing scandals in the history of the world, will soon be making its way to the big screen. As you can see from the Snowen official trailer below, it looks brilliant.
With Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Don Jon) stepping into the leading role, Snowden will show how the now infamous whistleblower moved from his military career to a hugely promising path through the intelligence services (via the CIA and NSA) before stumbling onto documents/programs proving the National Security Agency was intentionally spying on any and all electronic communications sent by ordinary people, and then deciding to leak classified documents proving the NSA’s hidden agenda to former Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald (Zachary Quinto, Star Trek) in 2013.
Stone clearly feels Snowden is both a patriot and a hero for his actions, and sticking to his beliefs, though he’s widely regarded by many (especially within the intelligence communities) as a US traitor, and we’ll see here (probably through a rather biased lens) how Snowden landed in his current predicament; stranded in Russia following the United States government cancelling his passport.
With a highly impressive cast including the likes of Shailene Woodley (Divergent); Nicolas Cage (Con Air); Timothy Olyphant (Justified); Rhys Ifans (Mr. Nice); Tom Wilkinson (Batman Begins); Melissa Leo (The Fighter); Joely Richardson (Maggie); and Scott Eastwood (Fury), Snowden is due to be released in the US on September 16th, but unfortunately stills lacks an official UK release date.
