Film: Snowden

About a month before I went out to Canada, I booked tickets to ‘see’ Snowden who was ‘appearing’ in Montreal while we were there. It was unfortunate that when the confirmation came through, a seat was not guaranteed but rather it was first come first served. And queuing likely. The proverbial ‘why ask us to book then?’ is asked.It’s not as though Snowdon isn’t going fill the largest lecture room at the city’s McGill University.We joined the queue about an hour 45 minutes before doors opening, despite hearing that people had been waiting for 3-4 hours before. The chance of getting in was virtually zero but it was interesting to see thousands of students wait to see someone beamed in from Moscow on a large screen.We disappeared to warm up with a coffee soon after the kicking off time although later we found out the utterly disorganised organises had opened another room so more people did get in. It started about an hour or so late. I gather from this that students have a very different concept of ‘best use of time’ than me.In any case, I’ve seen the documentary that this film depicts and I haven’t learnt anything new from seeing this film version. It’s not ‘untold’ as they say. I did learn he had to leave the army due to injury and joined the CIA at 22 but that doesn't really add anything to the story. It was fun to watch Snowden at work with all his geek friends and it is implied that some his clever friends didn't exactly agree to the government's spying on everyone either.However, the tension rising out of getting his whistle blowing interview published seems a little over-blown. For those who’ve not seen the documentary, I’d watch that than this, which is the ‘making of the documentary’.7/10