Whether you regard Edward Snowden as a patriot or a traitor, a whistleblower or leaker, you may be unhinged by the revelations of “Citizenfour,” the film by Laura Poitras about massive surveillance operations of the U.S. government and one geek’s attempts to bring the trend to light.

After seeing this suspenseful real-life thriller, you will be forgiven for looking over your shoulder or feeling a tinge of paranoia the next time you use your phone, credit card or e-mail.

“Citizenfour,” nominated for a documentary feature Academy Award, gets its small-screen premiere Feb. 23, locally 7-9 p.m. on HBO.

Poitras shares the tension of her first communication from former National Security Administration systems analyst Snowden from the opening shots. The camera documents her secretive meeting with him in Hong Kong, the participation of journalist Glenn Greenwald and The Guardian, and the incredibly tense hours in a hotel room, as Snowden gave his first interviews before his face appeared on building-high video screens, beaming to the world.

It’s as frightening as any scripted drama, and it really happened.

Poitras considers the film to be the third part of a trilogy she’s directed about U.S. foreign policy (starting with “My Country, My Country” and “The Oath”) over the last decade, assessing what she has called the country’s “moral drift” post-9/11.

Snowden contacted Poitras because he knew she was a longtime target of government surveillance who has been stopped at borders and followed as a result of her documentary research. The e-mail trail reveals how he contacted her, using the name “Citizenfour,” in January 2013.

The result is a minute-by-minute spy story, complete with discussions of how to play the media, how to escape notice when the whole world is looking for the whistleblower, and meetings with human-rights lawyers en route to obtaining political asylum.

The sight of then-29-year-old Snowden wetting down his hair before going public with the biggest scoop of the decade brings the story to a very human level. The scoop, he reminds the journalists (and the audience), is not his alleged theft of more than 1 million NSA documents and not his personal life story (although he and they know that will appeal to the media), but the fact that the U.S. government is secretly collecting vast information on its citizens.

Even critics of Snowden, who allege he is more rogue spy than hero, tend to give him credit for exposing illegal domestic spying operations. But they cast doubt on the reasons the former CIA technician and NSA analyst stole international secrets relating to America’s cyberintelligence strategies.

This film is idealistic enough to allow Snowden an heroic stance, without getting into the messier international breach. The story continues, but ultimately the camera glimpses him only from a distance, living with his longtime girlfriend in Moscow.

Joanne Ostrow: 303-954-1830, jostrow@denverpost.com or twitter.com/ostrowdp