I finished ripping up the kitchen floor early, so I treated myself to a Tuesday bargain movie.
Oliver Stone's paean to Snowden is heavy on the preaching, but it held fairly close to the facts as I understand them. The movie spent more time overall on Snowden's relationship with Lindsay Hill than his NSA activities (accurately so far as I can tell), and this was an angle the press hasn't covered much. The movie implies Snowden had a couple of allies inside the NSA that were at least aware of what he was doing -- though I've never seen this mentioned in any of the books about him -- and it shows him downloading the treasure trove of, what was it, 23 terabytes of data? in one session of about a minute. I don't think that was accurate either.
At the end of the movie, after Snowden gets his documents published and flees the country, only to get stranded in Russia, the footage suddenly shifts from the actor playing Edward Snowden to Edward Snowden himself. He's nothing if not well spoken.
All of the actors looked a lot like their real life counterparts. Zachary Quinto made a great Glenn Greenwald. Nicholas Cage plays a minor role.
The two-facedness of the Obama Administration is put in stark relief. Let's hope Barry decides to redeem himself in his lame duckitude by pardoning Snowden after the election. It would reflect well on him in history.
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