Review: Citizenfour

The story of American whistle-blower and ex-NSA employee Edward Snowden, who approached Berlin-based American filmmaker Laura Poitras to unload a bunch of information he felt in his conscience needed to get out to the public. Basically, the American government is spying on its citizens to a degree that Snowden is apparently uncomfortable with. Joining Snowden and Poitras for the documentary filming is reporter Glenn Greenwald, and with the sensitivity of the information Snowden has to reveal, everyone is full of nerves and suspicion as they film in a hotel in Hong Kong. It’s like “The Net”, but with a skinny Seth Rogen who has gotten even skinnier, and handsome. And really nothing like “The Net”, I just wanted to get that Seth Rogen joke in somehow.

 

I am the wrong person to be reviewing this film, I suppose. I’m not American, and although this story apparently has worldwide ramifications (Australia has its own metadata laws), I think it’s very much a film for Americans about America, post 9/11. It’s also not a very good film, and I will deal with that, whilst also being a bit ranty on how I so don’t care about this as much as I’m apparently supposed to. This Oscar-winning doco from Laura Poitras concerns former NSA consultant Edward Snowden and his attempt to convince everyone that he isn’t anywhere near as important as the message he is trying to get out (Either he’s insincere, or the filmmaker disagrees with him about that. Actually, I think it’s both). I found the main issues at play incredibly boring, and like WikiLeaks and Julian Assange, I think what Snowden has done, if not putting people in more danger, has the potential to do so. Therefore, I just can’t get around to supporting these kinds of actions. Call me naïve, but nothing that has been revealed about this whole metadata thing before or after the release of this film, has me overly concerned. Even if I were an American, I still think my attitude would largely be: Well, I have nothing to hide, so why do I care? I think anyone who is genuinely scared about all of this stuff, is just buying into conspiracy theory nonsense, or has something to hide. Also, nothing that Snowden (or WikiLeaks for that matter) revealed/released has terribly surprised or interested me. Either I’m too much of a conspiracy nut or not enough of one, and it makes it really difficult for me to get into a film about this subject. I don’t like the idea of government spying seemingly without having to be reined in (you’d have to be insane not to have some pause about it), but I just didn’t care enough about it, I guess. I’m more concerned with how releasing such information could lead us down a dangerous path (and even that I’m not especially frightened by, to be honest).

 

I mean, at one point Snowden says that he knows people who are now more careful what they type into a search engine, because they know the government could be watching. Yes, Edward. They’re called smart, sensible people who don’t look up suspicious shit, you moron! Meanwhile, all the clearly fake bullshit like hotel alarms going off, and his partner getting repeatedly asked about his whereabouts just didn’t seem convincing to me. It seemed like staged drama, and I wasn’t buying into it. There’s too many of these moments for me to buy it, not to mention the fire alarm thing is one of several seems that drags on forever. It really isn’t a very well-made film, I have to say, unless you like watching paint dry. At half-speed. If anything here, I was much more interested in the guy than the issues at hand. Other than that, the only interest here was seeing all of this real-life stuff play out from Snowden’s POV. That was kinda interesting, I guess. Unfortunately, although I got the distinct impression that Snowden really is more interested in his own celebrity than the ‘greater good’ (though he definitely believes in his actions to a certain degree, reckless as I find those actions- he’s not a villain nor a hero in my view), one otherwise found it hard to really get a read on him. I wanted to know a lot more about him, how he got to where he did in the NSA, and why he thinks it’s perfectly in his pay grade to do what he has done with the information leaks. This isn’t that film, and I don’t suppose it was trying to be. This film wanted to put me to sleep with boring metadata stuff, libertarian scare mongering (I’ve heard the filmmaker is a lefty like me, but Snowden himself is almost certainly a libertarian to hear him talk) and a wannabe self-sacrificing guy who spends way too much time showing off his awesome skillset and preening in the bathroom mirror.

 

Some of you will find this stuff absolutely riveting and important solely on subject matter. For me, this is a rare case where I think a fictional film would’ve been more interesting than a documentary. As is, this is dry, uninteresting, and full of wannabe thriller-of-the-week nonsense anyway, might as well go the whole hog and make a techno-thriller out of it. I’m shocked this won the Oscar for best Documentary, it’s pretty boring stuff, and none of the participants are particularly interesting to me, either, nor delved into very much. Clearly the Academy voters decided to vote the issue rather than the film and hoped history will vindicate their decision. Even then, I reckon I’ll still think it’s a lousy film. 

 

Rating: C