Oliver Stone’s Agenda in ‘Snowden’

Even after all these years, Oliver Stone’s films are met with a degree of skepticism the moment they are announced — long before a single frame has been shot.

Much of that credit goes to “JFK,” Stone’s account of the Kennedy assassination, which posited some wild theories.

Stone is a fan of the man — this much is clear.

Taking that film and that film alone into consideration, it is fairly easy to jump to conclusions as to how that same filmmaker would “see” the story of Edward Snowden — hero or traitor? — the man also known as “The Whistleblower.”

“Snowden,” as structured by Stone and co-writer Kieran Fitzgerald, moves chronologically, except for frequent fast-forwards to Hong Kong’s Mira Hotel in 2013, where Snowden hides and secretly shares his stolen data with a trio of visiting media.

They are documentarian Laura Poitras (Melissa Leo) and The Guardian reporters Glenn Greenwald (Zachary Quinto) and Ewen MacAskill (Tom Wilkinson). “Snowden” includes reenactments of the filming of Poitras’ documentary, “Citizenfour,” which came out in 2014.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt, in the title role, completely disappears into character. He drops his voice an octave and even nails the exact pattern of Snowden’s facial stubble.

In short, “Snowden” is thorough — at least when it wants to be.

For audiences that aren’t as familiar with the story, Stone manages to make the man’s conflict relatable: love of country, love of privacy, concern for the people closest to us. That sort of thing. Stone is a fan of the man — this much is clear.

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And he’s not necessarily a fan of Barack Obama, who comes off as a complete buffoon. There was more affection displayed for George W. Bush in Stone’s “W.” Keep in mind that Obama promised to change Bush’s surveillance programs, labeling them abusive — and Stone wants you to remember that during this film. They’ve only gotten worse.

That said, the film glosses over the thorniest of issues — both in terms of the U.S. government’s actions and the unintended consequences of Snowden’s disclosures. It settles for a safe, familiar account of one man standing up against the system, with the girl from “The Fault In Our Stars” on his arm. (Actually, Shailene Woodley has her fair share of screen time, as “Snowden” veers toward love story on more than one occasion.)

But this is Oliver Stone we’re talking about.

While many critics are already excoriating the film, and Stone in the process, there is a scene or two that is quite layered. One involves the suggestion that there were co-conspirators inside the NSA who helped or encouraged Snowden to get away with the files.

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Gordon-Levitt — a Golden Globe nod surely in his future, but we’ll see about that Oscar — manages to elicit both a gentle vulnerability and a firm moral backbone in the character. He’s good. He’s always good (see: “500 days of Summer” and “The Dark Knight Rises”). So, too, is Nicholas Cage as an aging bureaucrat who used to be a computer whiz kid.

While the film makes a closing plea for mass action, that gets lost amid a voice-over and then a closing image of Snowden’s smiling face. One of him in hiding might have been more effective.