“Arguing that you don’t care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don’t care about free speech because you have nothing to say.” –Edward Snowden

I won’t kid you. I went into this movie with some political bias about Ed Snowden, but not against him. I don’t have any numbers to proffer, but based on what I have heard and read it seems like he has almost as many opponents as he does proponents. Sparing you my own political sentiments I was vehemently for the biggest whistle-blower of the 21st century even before I saw the trailer for this film. Director Oliver Stone (JFK, Savages, Platoon), known for his masterful covering of controversial subjects, pulls no punches directing this epic tale of dramatizing the very real stress that plagued Edward Snowden, and, even at the time of this article’s composition, still does. Stone has delivered yet another out-of-the-park grand-slam!

Snowden stars the highly versatile Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Inception, The Dark Knight Rises) who was made to look at least as close to Snowden as Bryan Cranston looked to LBJ in All The Way. Set between 2004 and 2013, the film captures the life of the acclaimed whistle-blower and (to some) hero. Starting in his training days in the Army to what caused him to become medically discharged, Snowden remained determined to serve his country and thus his application to the CIA. From day one during his training in Virginia he easily surpassed his classmates having his first class assignment, what should have taken any apt programmer even a few hours to, done within an hour; then meeting Lindsey Mills, played by Shailene Woodley (Divergent, The Descendants), and having his own political philosophies scrutinized.

In Snowden’s last days of training his senior instructor expounds that the real soldiers of the new millennium aren’t the ones in boots on the grounds of Middle Eastern nations, but programmers who can foresee and prevent cyber-attacks before such an attack could cause any real damage. Then his first assignment in Geneva, where the fun began. Initially, he was shown XKeyscore, a program that provided unfettered access to anyone anywhere anytime, and all you needed was one name, email address, or phone number to get started. The scarier part came when it was shown that these programs could do more than invade personal and public social media accounts, but also could turn on otherwise disabled cameras and/or microphones on any laptop and personal device. While you may believe you have nothing to hide, which may be true, you probably don’t want some computer geek getting his jollies off watching you change clothes or shower or get lucky through your laptop or tablet camera — even when it’s off!

With prestige following Snowden from the CIA to his sub-contracting days with the NSA he would grow more and more at odds with his girlfriend Mills whose own lack of knowing better led her to sharing her pole-dancing routines on social media. Ouch! It was more than his level of clearance growing, but also a lot of his ideas actually getting approved and developed, including a massive back-up system for the NSA’s and CIA’s supercomputers that pushed both agencies’ software and tech light-years ahead of where they would have otherwise been that made a huge difference; but the real straw to break the camel’s back showed up when Snowden saw one of his programs weaponized and used in utterly abusive ways. Not one to ignore his own morality Snowden knew he had only one recourse: he had to expose what he felt were more and more gross violations of individual privacy.

So, the ultimate question: how did he get those files out? When you see the extensive security measures No Such Agency utilizes it’s nothing short of a miracle and his quick thinking that he got out of there without any scrutiny. Trust me when I tell you that not even the insane acrobatics of Ethan Hunt, in Mission: Impossible when he was getting the NOC list out of CIA headquarters, comes close to Snowden’s own simplified daring and tenacity of getting the micro-disk out of the NSA base. Using nothing more than his favorite game piece — those rubix cubes that pretty much only math-whizzes can solve — and a micro-SD card he was on his way out of the base, but not before one last visit with the security station that was always operated by no less than two to three guards. How can you bypass those intimidating X-ray scanners? Why, you challenge the guards to solve the cube! So, for what must have felt like an eternity to Snowden, in the moment, translated to about 30 pulse-pounding seconds of on-screen time as each of the guards gave a feeble attempt to solve the cube oblivious to what they were really holding.

In the denouement Snowden is introduced in a Q&A session via robotic telepresence wherein he explains why he made the choice to do what he did. Then the real jewel of the film arrived when the actual Snowden appeared on that bot and revealed what he sacrificed between the stability he could have had in life and love and his own future, “And I think the greatest freedom that I’ve gained is the fact that I no longer have to worry about what happens tomorrow, because I’m happy with what I’ve done today.”

Supported by a grade-A cast including Nicholas Cage (Face-Off, National Treasure), Tom Wilkinson (Batman Begins, Michael Clayton), Scott Eastwood (Gran Torino, Suicide Squad), Zachary Quinto (Star Trek, Star Trek Into Darkness), and many more Snowden delivers a blockbuster performance you will be all too happy to spend $15 to see. Who knows: if you consider yourself an opponent right now maybe you will have a change of heart.