Watch: Trailer Drops for Snowden Biopic

Film heading to theaters in September.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt may not look all that much like Edward Snowden, but he certainly sounds a lot like him in the trailer that dropped today for the upcoming Oliver Stone-helmed biopic Snowden. The movie, about the whistleblower's life and decision to reveal the existence of mass federal surveillance on American citizens, is currently scheduled for release on Sept. 16.

Watch below. The intrigue and paranoia I was expecting. The sex scene, not so much. But it is Hollywood!

Reason's writings on (and interview with) Edward Snowden can be accessed here.  

Comments

[Hyperion]

Saw that this morning. Looks good.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Looks a bit overdramatized, and with puffed up cloak-and-dagger.

There's no doubt that Snowden took great risks in what he did, but even watching the documentary Citizen Four the whole thing seemed pretty straightforward: NSA employee didn't like what he saw was going on, alerted the media, then became U.S. Government enemy #1. The movie seems to turn Snowden into exactly what Snowden said he didn't want: The story to become about him, which would divert attention away from the larger issues.

[TonyM]

After watching JFK I thought Oswald was a hero. It's the Stone effect.

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

That scares me about this movie.

[R C Dean]

I feel like I should watch a pirated copy of this movie, for some reason.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

The NSA has it on file.

[commodious spittoon]

"Back and to the left" pretty much captures Stone's lefty regressivism.

[RBS]

+ 1 Magic Loogie

[commodious spittoon]

OT: Can we finally bury the hatchet?

[GILMORE?]

An observation which my British colleagues frequently made about American food* =

"You people will take anything, drown it in cheese, and call it "Pizza-_________" or "__________-Quesedilla/Nachos" or... but really, its all just an excuse to eat a giant pile of cheap melted cheese with your hands like you're a bloody 4 year old."

(*this was mainly based on their perception of "bar-food" or the stuff you find in Airport lounges; which, given that we spent lots of time in bars and airports, I think they assumed this was what people must eat all the time)

[WTF]

Yeah, the British talking smack about some other country's cuisine. Kind of like Peter Dinklage calling Joe Pesci short.

[GILMORE?]

Anyone who goes anywhere will make observations about other people's food.

One of the other amusing examples of British-expectations = a kid was shipped over to NY, and shared my office, and @ lunchtime asked, "Where do you get a proper sandwich around here?" I said there was a deli across the street, and he looked awkward and went, "yeah, i saw..... i didn't really understand their menu*. What I mean is a *proper* sandwich....."

What i eventually understood him to mean was "a dry triangular shaped piece of bread sealed in plastic with 2 slices of ham and cheese and a packet of dijon mustard" like you would find in a "Tesco's-to-Go" or "Pret a Manger" which doesn't require ever actually thinking about what you want to eat or having to speak to anyone. It never occurred to me that "limiting human-interactions" held such a premium for them.

This same person also got very excited by the fact that the toilet-stalls don't go all the way to the ground in America. "Everyone can see your pants!" (underwear around your ankles)

It was an endless source of amusement.

[commodious spittoon]

It's just how they are.

[WTF]

What i eventually understood him to mean was "a dry triangular shaped piece of bread sealed in plastic with 2 slices of ham and cheese and a packet of dijon mustard" like you would find in a "Tesco's-to-Go" or "Pret a Manger" which doesn't require ever actually thinking about what you want to eat or having to speak to anyone. It never occurred to me that "limiting human-interactions" held such a premium for them.

That's pretty funny.

[commodious spittoon]

They're not wrong, but they are jealous they didn't think of it first.

[commodious spittoon]

I was going to make a squash casserole tonight, but just for that I'm going for chili-cheese dogs instead.

[GILMORE?]

Oh, they ATE it. But they insisted on announcing their cultural superiority before digging in elbow-deep.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Huh, interesting. Say what you will, but for British people to make fun of ANYONE else's food is pretty damned rich.

[Los Doyers]

His moodiness sounds like advanced stage scurvy.

[Clich? Bandit]

GET THAT MAN A LIME!

[Hugh Akston]

The cast looks really great, especially Nicolas Cage. But has Oliver Stone ever made a movie that wasn't complete bullshit?

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Any Given Sunday

*drops Mr. Microphone*

[Je suis Woodchipper]

I thought Cage's portrayal as the president was surreal.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

It's amazing how well he can pull off Barack Obama.

[Crusty Juggler]

Platoon?

[Free Market Socialist $park?]

More proof that Hollywood done run out of imagination.

[GILMORE?]

upcoming Oliver Stone-helmed biopic

My lunch. ruined.

Is it too much to ask that we at least finish the second act of someone's life before Hollywood tries to make a freaking movie out of it? Snowden's still in @#(*$!@ Russia? What happens after the movie comes out and Hillary has him killed?

[commodious spittoon]

Would be pretty ballsy to depict him being brought back, tried, and imprisoned.

[GILMORE?]

Frozen in Carbonite?

[commodious spittoon]

I love you.

[Clich? Bandit]

Well, he should be quite safe. If he survived the freezing process that is.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

The only way Snowden would be killed at this point is if he becomes disillusioned with life in Russia, and starts speaking out against that regime. Which actually happened in real life. Too lazy to google it but there was a guy from the west who defected to the Soviet Union. Then became disillusioned with the Soviets, started speaking out loudly against them, then mysteriously ended up floating face down in the Volga.

[commodious spittoon]

Somehow I can't work up as much sympathy for someone who defected to the Soviet Union.

[Je suis Woodchipper]

What if he tried to defect elsewhere? Could you work up sympathy then?

[commodious spittoon]

I take that back, actually. I have some sympathy for someone with the confidence of his conscience and acts on it. The assholes who want this country to be more like Cuba or Venezuela or the Soviet Union but wouldn't dream of slumming it in any of those countries are despicable.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

That's was pretty much it from what I recall. He was a big Bernie Sanders-like lefty (this was the late 70s/early 80s if I recall) and so he left our horrid capitalist system to live in the workers paradise. Discovering the worker's paradise wasn't a paradise, he got confused and thought he had first amendment rights in Russia. The soviets schooled him on that point.

[commodious spittoon]

(And I was referring to dead-in-the-Volga guy, not Snowden.)

[Je suis Woodchipper]

my bad. i got all defensive and shit.

[Chipwooder]

Wasn't that also the case with Edward Lee Howard, the CIA defector from the '80s? As I recall, he supposedly died from a broken neck after a fall in his home.

Sounds legit!

[paulrvalentine]

Snowden has already said several negative things about the Russian regime (much to the dismay of the many people on both sides who are interested in painting him as some Russian-loving hypocrite).

To this point, though, I the embarrassment to Washington/embarrassment to Moscow scale of his behavior still tilts heavily westward so the Russians will let it go.

[TonyM]

We'll see it in the sequel.

[Rhywun]

Without having seen the clip or knowing anything about this, I would watch JGL in pretty much anything.

[Florida Hipster]

Even Looper?

[Rhywun]

I liked it.

[Florida Hipster]

*cuts off Rhywun's past finger*

[Je suis Woodchipper]

He was charged with theft of govt property (among multiple counts of espionage). What did he allegedly thieve?

[Los Doyers]

JLevitt??

*swoon*

[Fist of Etiquette]

Fans call him JoGo.

[GILMORE?]

I never got it. He still looks like a teenager which i find a little unsettling. Sort of like Toby McGuire = i just don't buy him in "adult roles" because he's so kid-ish.

[Los Doyers]

No love for 500 Days of Summer?

[Citizen X]

Nope.

[Los Doyers]

Ahem, A and B conversation, Xeones.

[Citizen X]

You're not the boss of me.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

I agree. Good looking kid, but he should still looks too young to be cast in Pitch Perfect. Or... what's the one with the teenage vampire?

[Los Doyers]

The Little Vampire?

*lays out milk and cookies for OMWC*

[Rhywun]

He hasn't looked like a teenager in at least 10 years. He's a young-looking 35 which is fine by me.

[Crusty Juggler]

I do not get it either, and his weird fanbois yell at me because of it.

[Jerryskids]

Can't imagine why anybody would be surprised by a sex scene in a movie about how one little group of government officials fucked an entire country's ideals.

[Rhywun]

The spirit is willing, but the country's ideals are spongy and bruised.

[Thisisalongname]

Too bad he didn't take the Hillary defense and just say it wasn't classified at the time and he wanted it all on one device in his home cause "technology". Hindsight being 20/20 and all that.

[Chipwooder]

Wasn't the Army wearing ACUs not BDUs by the time Snowden enlisted?