In July 2010, the website WikiLeaks released over 90,000 secret United States military reports about the war going on in Afghanistan. This was one of the largest leaks in United States history, on par with the Watergate scandal during the 1970s under President Nixon. One man was responsible - Julian Assange. The Fifth Estate, partially based on a book written by Assange's former partner, Daniel Berg, titled: Inside WikiLeaks: My Time with Julian Assange at the World's Most Dangerous Website, details the history of WikiLeaks from when Berg and Assange first met back in 2007, to when the 90,000+ documents were released.
For those who don't know, WikiLeaks was a whistleblower organization - a website where confidential documents were posted online, and secrets were revealed. Portrayed by Benedict Cumberbatch, Julian Assange took it upon himself to decide that there should be no secrets from the people, and that he exposed confidential files for the greater good. Assange is made out to be a Robin Hood-like person, except instead of stealing the king's riches for the poor, he is exposing secrets the world does not necessarily need to know.
Assange and Berg, played by Daniel Brühl, meet at a computer convention, where the two became friends and Assange let Berg in on his website. Working to release files, Assange and Berg quickly grew WikiLeaks into a household name. Oscar Wilde once said: "Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth." Assange recites this to Berg, stating that WikiLeaks' mission is to protect the identity of whistleblowers. He says that he spent years working on a system that guarantees anonymity for their sources, and Berg believes him. Things, believe it or not, go smoothly, until two of Assange's sources are gunned down, causing a rift between him and Berg, and spelling trouble for WikiLeaks.
The motto of WikiLeaks was: "Courage is Contagious." Sadly, the movie is not contagious. The movie is, in fact, dull and uninvesting. I found myself often losing focus, and even struggling to not walk out of the theater. Even though it is based on actual events, the plot of the movie is boring and uninteresting. Often times, the movie is quite confusing, jumping from one leak, to personal troubles in Berg's life, to another leak, to problems in the United States government, and then back to another leak. It is very difficult to invest in these characters, as there is so much jumping around it is hard to keep track of who is doing what. One of the few interesting aspects of the movie was the fact that the majority of it was focused on Daniel Berg, NOT Julian Assange, which makes sense seeing as the movie was based on the book by Berg, however this results in viewers jumping right into an already established WikiLeaks, instead of seeing it being built from the ground up.
With that being said, Benedict Cumberbatch's portrayal of Julian Assange is mediocre at best. In the film, Cumberbatch's Assange does not come off as a person who is passionate about his cause, which is a problem because it was established that Assange had set out to change the world. Instead, the character comes off as a man who is working at a simple nine-to-five job, uninterested in what he is doing. A positive that comes out of Cumberbatch's performance is that the character development from beginning to end is clear and noticeable, while Daniel Brühl's performance is lackluster - there is zero indication of character development in Berg, even though the story makes it clear that there should be.
Directed by Bill Condon, The Fifth Estate does not do WikiLeaks justice. For a website that made such an impact on the world as it did, it at least deserves a movie that does something similar. Instead we are given a mediocre movie that, in my opinion, is not worth seeing.
Rating: 3 of 10 Check out more of our reviews at: brickmoviereviews.wordpress.com !
For those who don't know, WikiLeaks was a whistleblower organization - a website where confidential documents were posted online, and secrets were revealed. Portrayed by Benedict Cumberbatch, Julian Assange took it upon himself to decide that there should be no secrets from the people, and that he exposed confidential files for the greater good. Assange is made out to be a Robin Hood-like person, except instead of stealing the king's riches for the poor, he is exposing secrets the world does not necessarily need to know.
Assange and Berg, played by Daniel Brühl, meet at a computer convention, where the two became friends and Assange let Berg in on his website. Working to release files, Assange and Berg quickly grew WikiLeaks into a household name. Oscar Wilde once said: "Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth." Assange recites this to Berg, stating that WikiLeaks' mission is to protect the identity of whistleblowers. He says that he spent years working on a system that guarantees anonymity for their sources, and Berg believes him. Things, believe it or not, go smoothly, until two of Assange's sources are gunned down, causing a rift between him and Berg, and spelling trouble for WikiLeaks.
The motto of WikiLeaks was: "Courage is Contagious." Sadly, the movie is not contagious. The movie is, in fact, dull and uninvesting. I found myself often losing focus, and even struggling to not walk out of the theater. Even though it is based on actual events, the plot of the movie is boring and uninteresting. Often times, the movie is quite confusing, jumping from one leak, to personal troubles in Berg's life, to another leak, to problems in the United States government, and then back to another leak. It is very difficult to invest in these characters, as there is so much jumping around it is hard to keep track of who is doing what. One of the few interesting aspects of the movie was the fact that the majority of it was focused on Daniel Berg, NOT Julian Assange, which makes sense seeing as the movie was based on the book by Berg, however this results in viewers jumping right into an already established WikiLeaks, instead of seeing it being built from the ground up.
With that being said, Benedict Cumberbatch's portrayal of Julian Assange is mediocre at best. In the film, Cumberbatch's Assange does not come off as a person who is passionate about his cause, which is a problem because it was established that Assange had set out to change the world. Instead, the character comes off as a man who is working at a simple nine-to-five job, uninterested in what he is doing. A positive that comes out of Cumberbatch's performance is that the character development from beginning to end is clear and noticeable, while Daniel Brühl's performance is lackluster - there is zero indication of character development in Berg, even though the story makes it clear that there should be.
Directed by Bill Condon, The Fifth Estate does not do WikiLeaks justice. For a website that made such an impact on the world as it did, it at least deserves a movie that does something similar. Instead we are given a mediocre movie that, in my opinion, is not worth seeing.
Rating: 3 of 10 Check out more of our reviews at: brickmoviereviews.wordpress.com !