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A Good American

  • 2015
  • TV-14
  • 1h 40m
IMDb RATING
7.3/10
1.4K
YOUR RATING
A Good American (2015)
Trailer for A Good American
Play trailer2:14
1 Video
8 Photos
BiographyDocumentaryHistoryThriller

How a group of NSA code-breakers had a chance of preventing 9/11.How a group of NSA code-breakers had a chance of preventing 9/11.How a group of NSA code-breakers had a chance of preventing 9/11.

  • Director
    • Friedrich Moser
  • Writer
    • Friedrich Moser
  • Stars
    • William Binney
    • Jesselyn Radack
    • Kirk Wiebe
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • IMDb RATING
    7.3/10
    1.4K
    YOUR RATING
    • Director
      • Friedrich Moser
    • Writer
      • Friedrich Moser
    • Stars
      • William Binney
      • Jesselyn Radack
      • Kirk Wiebe
    • 14User reviews
    • 19Critic reviews
    • 63Metascore
  • See production info at IMDbPro
    • Awards
      • 1 win & 8 nominations total

    Videos1

    A Good American
    Trailer 2:14
    A Good American

    Photos7

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    Top cast17

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    William Binney
    William Binney
    • Self - Former Technical Director NSA
    Jesselyn Radack
    Jesselyn Radack
    • Self - Whistleblower Attorney
    Kirk Wiebe
    Kirk Wiebe
    • Self - Former Senior Analyst NSA
    Diane Roark
    Diane Roark
    • Self - Former Senior Staffer House Intelligence Committee NSA Account
    Edward Loomis
    Edward Loomis
    • Self - Former Senior Computer Scientist NSA
    Thomas Drake
    Thomas Drake
    • Self - Software Engineer, Former Senior Executive NSA
    Christopher Beer
    • Young Bill Binney
    Gregor Huter
    • Young Ed Loomis
    Mars Mohr
    • Young Kirk Wiebe
    Kevin Heipl
    • Extra
    Nikolai Hauser
    • Extra
    Alexander Bokor
    • Extra
    Ivan Krastev
    • Extra
    Lukas Kilian
    • Extra
    Joakim Schweiger-Ortiz
    • Extra
    Roberto Radics
    • Extra
    Thomas Gelter
    • Extra
    • Director
      • Friedrich Moser
    • Writer
      • Friedrich Moser
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

    User reviews14

    7.31.3K
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    Featured reviews

    10cblast-83416

    When covering up leaderships ignorance, takes a back seat to the truth, America Loses

    A Good American highlights the brilliance of the American Mind & ingenuity, while exposing the utter buffoonery & incompetence of those leading the American Intelligence Community.

    Good American reveals the importance of holding senior intelligence officers accountable for their failures. Rather than holding congressional inquires into the ignorance and incompetence of General Hayden & Maureen Baginski, the intelligence community invests all the resources available to them in order to discredit, intimidate, incriminate, & indite the whistle-blowers who simply tell the truth of their leaderships ineptitude.

    It makes it hard to teach your children to be accountable for their actions when they grow up in a country who refuses to be accountable for its own actions. At some point America needs to look in the mirror and hold its leaders accountable for the compete and utter incompetence, bordering on treasonesque, instead of using all of its resources to villainize whistle-blowers for exposing the truth.
    10The_Boxing_Cat

    Corruption - NSA the REAL terrorist.

    EVERY SINGLE AMERICAN should see this. We, the taxpayers need to stand up and make sure these people never hold another public position EVER.

    Watch this film, I will not list any spoilers. Beware- you too will get angry.

    They have blood on their hands.
    6gavin6942

    Not as Engaging as it Could Be

    "A Good American" tells the story of the best code-breaker the USA ever had and how he and a small team within NSA created a surveillance tool that could pick up any electronic signal on earth, filter it for targets and render results in real-time while keeping the privacy as demanded by the US constitution.

    Variety called the film "compelling if only semi-persuasive," and said that it was marred by bias toward William Binney. The Guardian described the film as a "fascinating, conspiracy theorising documentary", and said that while "some of the film's content has been aired before, the inside experience has not been voiced in such a collective manner, with (director) Moser joining the dots just as Binney might connect his metadata." I tend to side with Variety here. Although I enjoyed the documentary, it does have two major flaws. One, it really only tells Binney's side. That might be alright, but it allows the idea to be pushed that 9/11 would have been prevented, which cannot be said with as much confidence as he wishes. And two, for a film about a super-smart computer and global terror, it is a rather boring documentary. This should be gripping, but it was really rather mundane.

    A third point could be added... why make this in 2015 (and release it in 2017)? While no less interesting today than ten years ago, it does not seem as timely.
    9frantastika

    the piece of information that we were missing

    Many documentaries show us situations that we have some idea, that somewhat we know a bit or we have heard or read about it but not deep enough. For that reason, this documentary was a complete surprise from the beginning to the end and it seems the audience was very compelled too through the whole film... so I guess I wasn't the only one feeling like "how this happened and I did not read or hear anything about it". The topic is extremely important and current; we have several documentaries about how important is protect our data and privacy but not so many about how we got in this situation. Here is that piece we were missing and helps a lot to make sense nowadays with our sense of surveillance. We have films about Edward Snowden and the last one, "Snowden", have the Nicolas Cage's character base in the creator of "Thin thread" that is the man, the good American.
    7deloudelouvain

    Worth a watch to have a better view about the American corrupt system.

    Let's be honest, A good American is not the easiest documentary to watch, with alot of things that are to us, 'the normal human beings', difficult to understand. It's basically about Big Brother watching us, in everything we do, as soon as we are using an electronic device. The right to privacy might be written somewhere but the truth is that they couldn't care less about the right of your privacy. For brainwashed America it should be a mandatory watch, so that maybe people would open their eyes, on how the whole system there is just controling the masses and making as much money as they can, well only for the chosen few then, not for you and me, the common people. It's not about your safety, they don't really care about that, it's a bonus that's all. It's all about greed and power. That exactly people of 'good will' like the former technical director of the NSA William Binney, that created a system that could have prevented 9/11, get harassed by their own government is just a shame and disgraceful. Not that I'm a big fan of their system, far from, but at least they didn't do it out of greed or wanting to get rich, they did it to save humanity from atrocities. So yes A Good American is worth a watch, a watch until the end, so that you can truely understand the whole picture on how corrupt the whole American system is.

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    Storyline

    Edit

    Did you know

    Edit
    • Quotes

      Self - Former Technical Director NSA: In this process, of course, I learned, very simply put, if you want something done, you have to just go do it. You never ask for permission, only ask for forgiveness, if you have to.

    • Connections
      Featured in De wereld draait door: Episode #11.91 (2016)

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    FAQ17

    • How long is A Good American?Powered by Alexa

    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • April 7, 2016 (Slovenia)
    • Country of origin
      • Austria
    • Official sites
      • Facebook
      • Official Facebook
    • Language
      • English
    • Also known as
      • Un bon americà
    • Production companies
      • Blue+Green Communication
      • El Ride Productions
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Box office

    Edit
    • Gross worldwide
      • $5,457
    See detailed box office info on IMDbPro

    Tech specs

    Edit
    • Runtime
      • 1h 40m(100 min)
    • Color
      • Color
    • Sound mix
      • Stereo

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