September 21, 2016 The Skanner Page 7
Arts & Entertainment
FILM REVIEW: Joseph Gordon-Levitt FILM REVIEW: ‘The Magnii cent Seven’ a
Worthy Overhaul of Kurosawa Classic
Plays Infamous Whistleblower in
Reverential ‘Snowden’
By Kam Williams
For The Skanner News
D
‘Snowden’ repositions a supposed traitor as an altruistic hero of the highest order
By Kam Williams
For The Skanner News
E
arlier this year, the i lm Citizen-
four won the Academy Award in
the Best Documentary category.
But given how the movie made
less than $4 million worldwide, one
might reasonably conclude that the
details of Edward Snowden’s (Joseph
Gordon-Levitt) dump of National Se-
curity Agency documents remains
substantially unknown.
This is ostensibly the thinking of
three-time Oscar-winner Oliver Stone
(for “Platoon” and “Born on the Fourth
of July”) in turning the story into a
cloak-and-dagger drama about the
NSA whistleblower-turned-fugitive’s
leak of classii ed information before
going into hiding from the U.S. gov-
ernment. The movie unfolds in June
of 2013 in the Hong Kong hotel room
where Snowden met with journalists
Glenn Greenwald (Zachary Quinto)
and Ewen Macaskill (Tom Wilkinson)
along with Laura Poitras (Melissa Leo),
the eventual director of “Citizenfour.”
We learn that following four days
of interviews, Greenwald published
his i rst story in the British daily
newspaper, The Guardian. The Pu-
litzer Prize-winning series related
in stunning detail the extent of NSA
surveillance of American citizens in
direct contradiction of a recent deni-
al uttered under oath to Congress by
James Clapper, the nation’s Director of
National Intelligence.
Because the articles identii ed
Snowden as the source of the infor-
mation, he immediately became the
subject of an intense international
manhunt. He somehow managed to
slip through the dragnet and boarded
a commercial airliner bound for Mos-
cow, despite the fact that his passport
had been revoked and the U.S. had
requested his extradition from Hong
Kong.
Upon landing in Russia, Edward was
awarded temporary asylum and he has
languished there ever since. Lucky for
him, this movie has revived interest
in his case, inspiring him to recently
make a public appeal for clemency.
But a presidential pardon is unlikely
to be forthcoming, even though Presi-
dent Obama considered the apprehen-
sion of the “29-year-old hacker” a very
low priority back in June of ‘13. So to-
day, Snowden remains a fugitive from
justice charged in absentia with thet ,
espionage and conversion of govern-
ment property.
Via a variety of empathetic l ash-
backs, we are informed by the i lm
that Edward was a high school drop-
out who suf ers from epilepsy. He also
enjoys a very loving, enduring rela-
tionship with Lindsay Mills (Shailene
Woodley), the loyal girlfriend who fol-
lowed him from Virginia to Hawaii to
Moscow. More importantly, the movie
establishes Edward as so patriotic he
was willing to jeopardize his future
to sound the alarm about the surrep-
titious NSA’s widespread violations of
our Constitutional rights.
Congrats to Oliver Stone for crat ing
a reverential biopic which convincing-
ly repositions a supposed traitor as an
altruistic hero of the highest order.
Excellent HHH 1/2
Rated R
irected by the
legendary Akira
Kurosawa in 1954,
“Seven Samurai”
was a groundbreaking
i lm which had a pro-
found inl uence on the
evolution of cinema for
generations to come.
Superi cially, that sem-
inal work merely reads
like a martial arts epic
This incarnation of “The Magnii cent Seven” does feature a few
set in 16th Century Ja-
variations on the original
pan. Yet, over the years,
it has spawned a cot-
are a politically-correct, rainbow coa-
tage industry of knockof s trading in lition rel ecting every ethnicity.
the picture’s novel narrative revolving
Otherwise, the essence of the origi-
around a rag-tag team of sell ess he- nal plot remains intact. As the i lm un-
roes recruited in service of some lot y folds, we i nd the folks in the frontier
goal.
settlement of Rose Creek living in fear
In 1960, “Seven Samurai” was remade of Bartholomew Bogue and his gang of
as “The Magnii cent Seven,” a sprawl- marauders. Bogue is your stereotyp-
ing Western co-starring Steve Mc- ical, bloodthirsty villain, straight out
Queen, Yul Brynner, Charles Bronson, of central casting, played to perfection
Eli Wallach, Robert Vaughn and James by Peter Sarsgaard.
Coburn. Today, that classic has been
It is established early on just how
refreshed by Antoine Fuqua in an out- low the diabolical Bogue will stoop to
ing reuniting the director with Denzel achieve his evil ends, between murder-
Washington following successful col- ing an innocent woman and burning
laborations on The Equalizer (2014) the church to the ground. That makes
and Training Day (2001) for which the the arrival of bounty hunter Sam Chi-
latter won an Academy Award.
solm (Washington) all the more wel-
This incarnation of “The Magnii - come by the time the exasperated and
cent Seven” does feature a few varia- intimidated local yokels are at their
tions on the theme. For example, the collective wit’s end.
picture’s dastardly bad guy is now an
They also have no idea that Chisolm
avaricious white man intent on seiz- isn’t merely motivated by altruism but
ing a mining town’s gold instead of a has his own revenge-fueled reason to
Mexican bandito simply staging a se- tangle with Bogue. Regardless, once
ries of border raids. And the good guys
enlisted to engage the greedy gringo
See SEVEN on page 11