Benedict Cumberbatch
Daniel Brühl
Anthony Mackie
David Thewlis
Alicia Vikander
Stanley Tucci
Laura Linney

Josh Singer

128 mins.
Biography, Drama, Thriller
October 18, 2013

Rated R for language and some violence. (MPAA)

“The Fifth Estate” is a film directed by Bill Condon that recounts the early days of Julian Assange’s Wikileaks, a website that leaks classified documents, among other things, as a form of whistleblowing. The title refers to the new age of information dissemination ushered in by the site.

At the heart of the film is Assange and one of his first collaborators, Daniel Berg. (Berg is played by Daniel Bruhl, who is Niki Lauda in Ron Howard’s “Rush” – a far better film. Bruhl was introduced to mainstream audiences in the U.S. as part of the cast of Quentin Tarantino’s “Inglorious Basterds.”) This film is based on two books, one of which is by Berg. Assange hasn’t been pleased with the film, but he did praise Benedict Cumberbatch’s portrayal of him … well, of course he did.

The acting here is fine, but everything else is suspect. The story is convoluted and doesn’t resemble anything worth paying attention to until the last 20 minutes or so. But that may be due to the subject matter at the end, which is about the leaks from Private Manning and is the most interesting part of the story presented here.

Josh Singer wrote the screenplay. This is his first film script, and it shows. The end of the film is where it should have started in terms of focus and tension. Depicting web activity is always a challenge for film: There’s no dialogue, and the audience must read what’s being typed. “The Fifth Estate” doesn’t make that experience compelling. In contrast, “The Social Network” does a superlative job of that. But Aaron Sorkin can’t write everything. Singer and Condon should have found a different style to avoid that comparison, or they should have mimicked it fully by not requiring the audience to read all of those messages scrolling across the screen. Furthermore, the use of a virtual office space to depict how Wikileaks works yields mixed results, at best.

This film’s biggest flaw is that there’s no true suspense or build-up; there’s just the specter of one. I just didn’t know why I was watching this film, other than to find out about the beginnings of the site and its founder. I wasn’t immersed in the world that Condon attempted to create.

As for Assange, he doesn’t come across well here; I can see why he doesn’t like this film. He’s stubborn, self-centered, and self-promoting. He treats others as objects, rather than as people. His childhood is used as an explanation: He grew up in a cult, which supposedly explains why he dyes his hair white, among other things. It’s just that they didn’t make me care, not even a little.

If you’re interested in Assange or in Wikileaks, then you might want to check this out. Otherwise, don’t waste your time. No film should be solely dependent upon a viewer’s interest in its subject matter. The best films transcend their subject matter.

Verdict: Whatever

About: (Source: thefifthestate)

Triggering our age of high-stakes secrecy, explosive news leaks and the trafficking of classified information, WikiLeaks forever changed the game. Now, in a dramatic thriller based on real events, THE FIFTH ESTATE reveals the quest to expose the deceptions and corruptions of power that turned an Internet upstart into the 21st century’s most fiercely debated organization. The story begins as WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange (Benedict Cumberbatch) and his colleague Daniel Domscheit-Berg (Daniel Brühl) team up to become underground watchdogs of the privileged and powerful. On a shoestring, they create a platform that allows whistleblowers to anonymously leak covert data, shining a light on the dark recesses of government secrets and corporate crimes. Soon, they are breaking more hard news than the world’s most legendary media organizations combined. But when Assange and Berg gain access to the biggest trove of confidential intelligence documents in U.S. history, they battle each other and a defining question of our time: what are the costs of keeping secrets in a free society—and what are the costs of exposing them?”