The Fifth Estate

I tend not to read reviews until after I've watched a film lest they sway my opinion, but it wasn't hard to miss the nonchalance (that veers towards damnation) with which The Fifth Estate has been received. Nor that it plays just once per day, at 9pm, at my local Cineworld compared to five screenings per day for Captain Phillips, eight for Ender's Game and fourteen for Thor: The Dark World.

But Bill Condon's (Gods and Monsters, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn) film about Wikileaks founder and hero/pariah (delete according to your political stance) Julian Assange really isn't that bad. Take that as you will.

Not really a biopic, The Fifth Estate takes a similar approach to Assange as The Social Network did with Mark Zuckerberg, looking more at the product of the man than the man himself. It consumes 8 minutes more of your time than The Social Network, feels twice as long, is far more arduous and will require just a single viewing, compared to repeat visits for the Facebook flick.

Trudging through the meeting of the ultimate whistleblower Assange (Benedict Cumberbatch) and Daniel Berg (Daniel Brühl), the explosion of Wikileaks in the public's perception, the shadowy deals with The Guardian and the fall out from countless exposés about underhand dealings from governments and corporations, The Fifth Estate spews out a huge amount of information but never quite manages to get down to the gritty truth.

It feels cluttered and more of a lecture than a movie and I'm not sure I know a great deal more about Assange now than I did yesterday. Too much has been shoehorned into its 128 minute running time but it still only glances over some of the highest profile matters surrounding Assange: the Bradley/Chelsea Manning revelations and the sexual misconduct allegation against Assange that have led to his exile in the Ecuadorian embassy in London.

Cumberbatch succeeds admirably in portraying Assange as an obsessive with a serious case of egotism and a lack of social graces or personal care. It's a fine performance and will be a revelation to those who know Cumberbatch only from BBC's Sherlock or Star Trek Into Darkness. He is eminently watchable and succeeds in making an unpleasant man fascinating to watch. Assange wrote an open letter to Cumberbatch hoping to dissuade him from portraying him on film in The Fifth Estate, a "wretched" film, a work of fiction "based on a deceitful book", and one imagines that, should a copy of the film reach him inside his 'prison' he'll be dismayed by the way he is portrayed. Perhaps he'll be magnanimous to concede that, nevertheless, it is a fine performance from Cumberbatch.

Many of the other prominent actors don't fare quite as well. Brühl follows up his superb performance in Rush with a more downbeat character that he never really sinks his teeth into. Like Brühl, Alicia Vikander, Berg's love interest and just one of many thorns in Assange's side, has little to play with and her performance is smothered by the presence of Assange.

Bucking the trend, David Thewlis gives a pastiche of a Guardian journalist, more given to flouncing noisily into meetings and huffing in exasperation than acting. But Thewlis' performance is evened out by able turns from the new Doctor Who, Peter Capaldi, Laura Linney and Stanley Tucci, though with so many characters vying for screen time and Condon battling to squeeze in as much information as possible alongside some outdated 80s techniques (text across faces, anyone?), they, too are lost in the mêlée.

The Fifth Estate isn't a great film and it may not be terribly truthful (the jury's still out on that one) but, despite it's flaws, I still enjoyed it. Once! And maybe truthful representations aren't important. As Cumberbatch wrote in his response to Assange, "…the film should provoke debate and not consensus."

And in that, at least, The Fifth Estate succeeds admirably.

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As I walked into the theater with my wife, she asked me again what this film was about. I said, its about Wikileaks. I told her about Assange and the mission of Wikileaks. I had already had my own formed opinions about Assange, but refrained from sharing it with her. I was curious to see what her reaction was and what her opinion of Wikileaks and Assange was after the film.

The film was not bad. It was sort of an attempt to make a Facebook style film about Wikileaks and although it nowhere measured up to the quality of "Social Network." Its attempt was commendable and all-in-all, it was not a waste of the 18 Euros we spent to see it.

However, what really bothered me throughout the entire film was Cumberbatch's portrayal of Assange. I could see he was trying very hard to mimic Assange to the best of his ability, but I either don't think he had it in him or he was purposely playing Assange a lot crazier than he appears in real life. I have seen lots of interviews with Assange, who in my mind, comes across a bit like a mixture between a politician and professor. Cumberbatch, on the other hand, came across as a sort of eccentric nut.

The next thing that bothered me is where the film decided to stop. Basically, it skimmed over the current scandals, making Assange sound like more of nut than Cumberbatch's portrayal. The last five minutes especially sunk into me the feeling that the film unfairly portrayed Assange.

And my suspicions were confirmed. I asked my wife what her opinion of Assange was as a good or bad guy, and she seemed to indicate she was leaning towards bad. The last few minutes of the film, basically sunk that message in loud and clear.

My conclusion is, that, this film is a good example of the new way of being critical. Pretend to be fair and at the last minute, throw up a bunch of negative facts.

I believe that combining the positive portrayal of the U.S. state department with the crazy portrayal of Assange, was neither fair nor accurate. History will probably judge this film as just another propaganda piece of the corrupt powers that be.

If I were to write this film, I think it would have been much more interesting to concentrate on the incidents of human rights abuses rather than on the Assange himself. It would have also had the positive effect of encouraging, rather than discouraging whistle-blowers. This film does not seem to inspire anything.

Assange was right about the film.

'THE FIFTH ESTATE': Two Stars (Out of Five)

Propaganda film attempting to smear the public's view of the internet news site WikiLeaks. It's based on the books 'Inside WikiLeaks: My Time with Julian Assange and the World's Most Dangerous Website' by Daniel Domscheit-Berg and 'WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange's War on Secrecy' by David Leigh and Luke Harding. It was scripted by Josh Singer and directed by Bill Condon. The movie stars Benedict Cumberbatch as WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and Daniel Bruhl as his partner in crime Daniel Domscheit-Berg. The two lead actors are both great in the film but the movie itself is shamefully exploitative.

The story explores how Julian Assange (Cumberbatch) and Daniel Domscheit-Berg (Bruhl) first met (in 2007) and started up the website WikiLeaks. The site is dedicated to releasing important news to the public, that's currently being kept secret, while protecting their sources (and keeping them anonymous). Their relationship becomes troubled as the website grows more and more controversial and Daniel suspects that Assange has ulterior motives for 'publishing the truth' (while not really caring about protecting the people providing the information). The movie also examines Assange's upbringing (and time spent in a cult) and Daniel's relationships with colleagues, family and friends.

The film is somewhat suspenseful and adequately directed but it makes no effort whatsoever to hide it's true agenda; that of smearing WikiLeaks and it's founder Julian Assange. Like I said the two lead performances are excellent though, especially Cumberbatch (who is supportive of WikiLeaks and communicated regularly with Assange during filming). Cumberbatch was drawn to the acting opportunities provided by his complex role and encouraged rewrites of the horrid script. He's said "No matter how you cut it, he's (Assagne) done us a massive service, to wake us up to the zombielike way we absorb our news". I don't have any idea what kind of a person Assange is but I agree he's done us all "a massive service" and don't think this film does anyone one. I'm glad it bombed (so horribly) at the Box Office and think most people were smart enough to know what it's true intentions are. The documentary 'WE STEAL SECRETS: THE STORY OF WIKILEAKS' is a much more honest and informative film on the subject. You should check it out instead.

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I know I'm in the minority, but I liked "The Fifth Estate." Others will agree with me, though, that the best thing about it is Benedict Cumberbatch, who does brilliant job as Julian Assange.

I come at this film from a slightly different point of view because I still don't know what was so fabulous about "The Social Network." I understand the comparisons due to the similar stories. People seemed to find "The Social Network" incredibly compelling, but I guess it's a generational thing - I just didn't.

I attended this film with a friend who had only a vague knowledge of Wikileaks, and he absolutely loved it and found the "redaction" scenes toward the end of the film tense and suspenseful, as I did.

I realize that some of the film may be fictional, and that Wikileaks is a controversial subject. I can't pretend to know the truth. Cumberbatch portrays Assange as an egomaniacal, protective, arrogant man who refuses to compromise, even when information may hurt people. His right hand, Daniel (Daniel Bruhl) begins to see that Assange's dictatorial attitude and paranoia has gone too far and is actually in the long run going to hurt what could have been an important organization.

What should we know, and when should we know it? Assange wants to release unedited documents onto the World Wide Web. Yet in the beginning of the film, he wants at all costs to protect sources. He seems to forget that later on. That's all in the film, based on two books that we're told are biased.

Still, The Fifth Estate raises some interesting questions and also talks about the challenges we face now with news going out onto the Internet. I think some transparency is healthy; I don't think banks should help customers cheat the U.S. out of $30 billion in taxes; but I don't believe military strategy should be leaked, and I believe that sources should be protected. It seems like so much of what we hear today, from politicians and celebrities and publicists is "spin." And most of us are aware that there's more than they're telling us.

As far as the acting, Laura Linney and Stanley Tucci are marvelous in small roles; Cumberbatch gets excellent support from Bruhl, Alicia Vikander, Jamie Blackley, and the rest of the cast.

In short, Cumberbatch's performance should be seen and appreciated. I think this film has gotten a bad rap. It's certainly not an awful film.

Everyone seems to be mad at this movie because everyone who talks about it comes to it with a strong opinion about Julian Assange, and they wanted the film to depict him as a savior or a monster. I didn't have those preconceptions and I enjoyed the film from the opening title sequence. That sequence depicts hands carving hieroglyphics in Ancient Egypt, illuminated manuscripts, the first printing press, newspapers, computers – the myriad ways humans communicate. It's a title sequence Frank Capra would love.

I found "The Fifth Estate" intriguing, fun, and moving. Benedict Cumberbatch is very good as Assange. The movie wants you to be impressed by him at first, but slowly to see his feet of clay, and Cumberbatch does that job. Daniel Bruhl plays Daniel Domscheit Berg, Assange's partner. Bruhl expresses disappointed hero worship very well. Assange is invited to Berg's home for dinner, and he disrespects Berg's polite parents. That intimate, believable scene makes you hate Assange in a way that his secret-releasing shenanigans might not.

"The Fifth Estate" struggles, as all computer-related films do, to depict life on a computer. It creates a fake office with the sky as ceiling where Assange's "volunteers" work. Assange describes his submission process at Wikileaks and pages appear on screen. These visual flourishes are fun.

The movie is interesting and fast-moving but not very deep. There are very big questions at play here and "The Fifth Estate" does not engage them deeply. Laura Linney plays Sarah, an American agent whose contact, Tarek, is endangered by Assange's revelations. There is some tension as Tarek flees Libya. Will he get out before Assange outs him, or will he and his family be captured and perhaps tortured by their oppressive government?

Perhaps if "The Fifth Estate" had been more art than docudrama it could have gone deeper. Imagine a conversation between Sarah and Assange. One could argue for the importance, both strategic and humanitarian, of state secrets, and the other could argue against. Other questions – aren't secrets inevitable? Accept it: there is stuff you are simply never going to know.

And, in the end, what difference did Assange make? The US is still in Afghanistan. Guantanamo still operates. People will pay more attention to Miley Cyrus twerking than to documents about torture in a Third World nation. Someone said once of the Cambodian genocide that no one will ever read all the documents the Khmer Rouge amassed. No one cares enough to do so.

Laura Linney is every bit the actor that Benedict Cumberbatch is. I'd love to have heard these two characters have this conversation.