Snowden

There's a long history of disillusionment in Oliver Stone's body of work, with many of the writer-director's protagonists coming to realise that the establishments or systems they'd put their faith in were cold-hearted, corrupt or deceitful.

In the early years of Stone's career, in films like Platoon, Wall Street, JFK and Born On The Fourth Of July, there was an outrage that gave his work an intensity that was almost unmatched in mainstream cinema.

As the years have passed, Stone's interest in people who have felt betrayed or disenchanted by the machinations of the powers that be has remained intact. But the incandescent fury that drove his earlier films has dimmed somewhat, as his new movie Snowden demonstrates.

While it is pedestrian in its approach, this biopic of Edward Snowden, CIA analyst turned whistleblower, is still an engrossing story of a young man determined to do his part for his country, only to realise that the powerful organisations to which he'd pledged his allegiance had a different strategy in mind.

Snowden, played with subdued but still interesting presence by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, is a patriot, one keen to combat terrorism in the years after September 11 attacks.

His military training is cut short by two broken legs but his aptitude for technology makes him a natural for the battleground of the future - the computer connections rapidly spanning the entire world.

He quickly gets a crash-course in how much the surveillance apparatus used by American intelligence agencies can see, and how the information it gathers can be used to America's advantage. But he gradually understands that this apparatus is being used to monitor allies and even civilians, and it's at this point that Snowden realises that he must act, even if it runs counter to everything he has believed before.

Snowden's actions have already been chronicled in the media, as well as the Oscar-winning documentary Citizenfour, but Stone's film aims to present the man in addition to the man's actions, thereby providing some insight into what some regard as one of the most treasonous deeds of recent times.

However, the complexity of both Snowden and his situation feels somewhat diluted here, the film preferring to sidestep the grey areas in favour of a relatively black-and-white worldview.

It's a fine entry point to understanding who Edward Snowden was and why he did what he did, and a fine true-life conspiracy thriller. But it's hard not to feel that it's only scratching the surface of a story that affects us all.