Why Snowden is a bad movie

I am throwing the main concept in the title because I found Snowden a two hours and twenty minutes long waste of time, therefore I don't want you to waste your time as well. If you are willing to stay with me for a few more lines (or you've already seen it, liked it, and you want to see how wrong I am), here my motivations for such a harsh title (that, roll credits, is always a complicated deal).

Snowden is a dramatization of the events occurred between 2003 and 2014 to Edward Snowden, the former CIA and NSA employee, and now whistleblower currently living in Russia. He revealed to the press that the USA government was illegally surveilling the US citizens as well as every cellphone or computer in the world. 

The movie is about him, since when he was unable to join the military forces, to the day he blew the whistle. I saw very polarized discussions over the internet about how good or bad he is. I am not here to discuss that. Just looking at the movie, one aspect strikes you in the worst possible way: we are not seeing the story of a human being.

If you produce something to tell a story that everyone in the room already knows (it happened 3 years ago), you need to characterize it with something. This is completely missing, we are seeing a series of events that lead to an already known epilogue, and the actors do not transmit any emotion. I'm not talking about their acting performances, that aspect was overall good. My problem is how the film is structured.

Oliver Stone tries to make us care about Snowden by introducing showing us the fact that he has a girlfriend. The obvious problems that can emerge in a relationship where one of the two has a top-secret clearance are explored in two brief, emotionless, scenes. The same treatment goes to the emergence of his paranoia, to his health issues due to his paranoia, and to the struggle of the journalist to whom he blew the whistle. Above all of that, we see a character showing nearly no struggle for 2 hours, that could have easily walked away at any given moment (at least in the movie he could), and makes the decision of spreading a pretty damaging news on his beloved country in literally 10 seconds. No transitions whatsoever, point A to D and a scene cut in between.

This movie lacks a human presence, becoming more similar to a documentary, except that it doesn't have the precision of a documentary. Therefore, in my opinion, it falls short in nearly every aspect that makes a movie a good one. The only thing that makes it interesting is the fact that it is polarizing the audience between those that consider him a traitor and those that consider him a hero. Something that could easily happen if you read about it or watch a documentary, with the downside that, being a movie, it doesn't have enough content to provide a satisfactory picture. 

These are the aspects that made the long movie Snowden something excruciatingly long and a pointless cinematographical product.