Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Kien Navarro Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Cheryl A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

Billy Ollie Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

robin-benson A fascinating and amazing story about lengths a government will go to know everything and deny they are doing it ("...we were lying for national security reasons") but I wonder how many people will watch this documentary twice. The problem I found with Laura Poitras's film is that the subject isn't really visual. This would have been a wonderful long forme article in the New Yorker, Atlantic or Vanity Fair where copy editors knock it into shape to make every word count. Thankfully there is no print equivalent of out of focus camera work, visual padding with no commentary, white noise background sound (prevalent at the start of the film) or sloppy filming of three men, in a Hong Kong hotel, discussing how to leak secrets. It could all have been summed up in a few thousand words and two or three photos in a magazine.

grantss Quite dull.A documentary on Edward Snowden, the NSA agent who blew the whistle on the US's surveillance of its own citizens. The movie shows how reporter Glenn Greenwald met and interviewed Snowden in Hong Kong, Snowden discussing his motivations, how the story was broken and the effects thereof.Set up like a thriller, but more tedious than thrilling.How this won the 2015 Oscar for Best Documentary, I don't know. While there was some intrigue initially, as Snowden tries to connect with Greenwald, after that it is pretty dull. Most of the movie consists of scenes of Snowden and Greenwald waffling on about nothing important. At best you get Snowden's naive motivations for doing what he did. The detailing of events as they unfurl is interesting at times, but it is really nothing you didn't already know.

calvinnme ...and given the constraints they were operating under, maybe that much could not be revealed.The first 20 minutes or so are of Ed, who isn't even known to the world yet, talking to a couple of journalists he has invited to his Hong Kong hotel room where he is hiding out from a system that doesn't even know he is missing yet. In a way, I'm surprised they came because about ten minutes into the conversation one says "What is your name again?", so maybe they had no idea what they were getting into, maybe at first they thought they were dealing with a crackpot, etc.Some people have said it is boring, and I don't know why. Although you never get any real specifics about what Snowden did have on the NSA, you get an idea from him just sitting on his bed in his tee shirt talking to these journalists that he has seen stuff that has made him hyper vigilant. He puts a red hood over him when he types in a password to his laptop in case there is visual surveillance, he unplugs the phone because it contains ICs that can be used as a "hot mike", and he is highly suspicious when the fire alarms go off just as he is talking about what he knows. His fear is real.I think this preliminary footage may have just been a way to show a human side of Ed. I mean, a lot of the documentary (on top of revealing more details of the secrets he leaked) is meant to show to the world that he's not crazy bob in his trailer in Nevada. He's a young, very smart, very articulate, very normal individual. Showing him simply struggling with his hair (something I'm sure most of us have dealt with at one point or another) demonstrates to us that he's not a mysterious conspiracy theorist to be dismissed; he's just like you and I. And the human quality makes us trust what he has to say a lot more. It's easy to ignore someone you think is crazy. It's not so easy to ignore someone in whom you see a little bit of yourself.As for Glenn Greenwald of UK's The Guardian, he's shown as an articulate spokesman and advocate. He goes to Brazil and explains to them that all of this surveillance is just not about fighting terrorism. He brings his case home to them by saying if they were bidding on a contract in the US, then all of the details of their negotiations and plans to get that contract are now in the hands of the US government, and could be put in the hands of any American competitor.The negatives? There is a part at the end that is not clearly explained. It is a conversation between Greenwald and Snowden about there being another contact in Germany that is ready to talk about what he knows about NSA surveillance. Some extremely unclear pictures are drawn and Snowden looks somewhat horrified saying stuff like "This is very risky. Does this guy know what he is doing, etc." He is really scared for the new contact, but it is never clear what is going on. The only other negative I have is, did the print explaining the transition between scenes HAVE to be so small? I had to pause the DVD and get up close to the screen to see what was being said.I'd highly recommend this documentary just based on the fact that it pulls together some of the information that has now been scrubbed from public sources, shows Snowden as a human being, shows the bravery of both himself and Glenn Greenwald, and brings up that pesky question - is giving up such privacy - which as the documentary mentions is pretty much a synonym for liberty - worth it for increased security. Benjamin Franklin seemed to think that was not so. Watch it with an open mind.

eddie_baggins Winner of this year's Best Documentary feature at the Academy Awards, Citizenfour is an insightful and rare glimpse into the politically charged revelations of former NSA sub-contractor Edward Snowden that has seen him become a Julian Assange like figure of the modern world and one of the wanted men on America's most hated list.Before Oliver Stone's high profile Joseph Gordon Levitt retelling of the Snowden story hits our screens sometime next year, Citizenfour offers us the best chance to get to know Snowden the "person" not the news headline and also get background as to why this clearly smart and sophisticated young man choose to unleash the National Security Agency's real dealings to the world through his touch base with the Guardian newspaper and documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras.Citizenfour (Snowden's code name in email contact with reporters and filmmakers) is not a documentary worth seeing for any other reason other than the fact it's an incredibly intimate and unflattering look at the week in the life of Snowden when the news was being prepped for the world at just what was going on behind closed doors. Snowden allowed filmmaker Poitras access to his hotel room as he carried out meetings with the Guardian's reporters Glenn Greenwald and Ewen MacAskill and while watching we feel like a fly on the wall as this world changing news is gathered and the dots are joined together. In these close-nit meetings Snowden comes across as a likable and thoughtful persona that cares not for his own goals, rather the lives of his fellow citizens both at home and abroad.Snowden's recollections of what lay at the fingertips of the NSA are both revealing and frightening and he displays a clear understanding of just why this information can't be left behind closed doors. After watching Snowden talk, you'll be hard pressed to look at your phone or computer in the same way as before.With Steven Soderbergh's presence here as a producer, Citizenfour has a polished feel but really as a film making piece there's nothing to ride home about here and the true star of the show is Snowden himself. Perhaps a slightly strange choice for a Best Documentary win at the Oscars considering the film mainly consists of a camera planted solely around Snowden, Citzenfour is none the less an intriguing and honest look into one of the modern eras most explosive information leaks.3 ½ tension riddled fire alarm tests out of 5