Review: The Fifth Estate

The story of WikiLeaks and its Aussie founder and former hacker Julian Assange (Benedict Cumberbatch), who creates a way for anonymous whistle-blowers to reveal important government/corporate secrets, as well as news leaks published online. Before long, it seems as though WikiLeaks is breaking all the important news stories first. However, eventually Assange and his German colleague Daniel Domscheit-Berg (Daniel Bruhl, playing a character whose book the film is partly based on) become news themselves as WikiLeaks ends up in possession of a whole slew of sensitive U.S. intelligence documents that Assange wants to release. When their lives could possibly be in danger, Daniel urges Assange to stop and think before releasing the documents. But the egotistical Assange is undeterred (‘Editing is bias’ he says at one point), and Daniel becomes extremely disillusioned with what WikiLeaks has seemingly become. David Thewlis plays a more traditional news journalist, whilst Laura Linney, Anthony Mackie, and Stanley Tucci play White House officials, the former worried about sensitive info in cables being released that could cause serious diplomatic problems.

 

It’s impossible to come into this 2013 Bill Condon (“Gods and Monsters”, “Dreamgirls”) film without having formed some opinion on the divisive figure Julian Assange, and your opinion of him will likely dictate your response to the treatment Condon and screenwriter Josh Singer give to his character. I personally have very mixed feelings about Assange, though not nearly as strong feelings as many others might hold (especially those in the media or political arenas). Whilst nothing that WikiLeaks have released thus far has terribly shocked me, I do believe that they could’ve posed possible danger to geopolitical relations at the very least. I think what Assange did was incredibly reckless and not as important as he probably thinks. I also think he’s a pompous, preening twat of a human being. That said, I also believe the sexual assault allegations against him were complete BS, terribly inappropriate for what he was actually said to be guilty of, and most likely trumped up due to U.S. influence in order to get him extradited. I also think that this latter part is the juiciest part of his story. Frankly, the WikiLeaks stuff, whilst it could’ve been potentially dangerous, was never terribly interesting to me (I rather think it was overblown on all sides) and to focus on that part really only serves to feed the man’s already ginormous ego. Condon and Singer have decided to devote their entire time to the WikiLeaks saga, with the sexual assault case reduced to a mere mention before the end credits via a postscript.

 

I say all of this to give you an idea on the frame of mind with which I entered this film. Needless to say, I didn’t get much out of this one, and the opening montage of news events that seemed to want to equate this story with other major historical news events was a bit on the nose to say the least. I don’t care about Assange or this part of his story at all. I don’t think what he did was heroic, and his enemies killed their own argument by going to ridiculous lengths to get at him. Is this story more serious than “The Social Network”? Yes, to a degree. Is Mark Zuckerberg more important than Julian Assange? Hells yes he is. Assange is a legend in his own uber-nerd mind. Facebook blew social networking up real big, WikiLeaks did diddly squat by comparison in whatever purpose it was attempting to achieve. I think the Edward Snowden story was more important than this one to be honest. If it weren’t for the trumped up assault charges making Assange look like a martyr (a major mistake by his enemies if indeed there was a conspiracy against him), I doubt anyone would care after the initial story buzz died down. But I must confess that I barely make it into Gen Y, and I get most of my news from TV, not the internet, so I’m a little bit unqualified in a way (And yet I’m writing this as an internet blogger/reviewer. The irony isn’t lost on me). But as far as I’m concerned, WikiLeaks is not journalism. It’s regurgitating hacked sensitive information that I don’t think served anywhere near enough of a purpose to make me fall into either camp on Assange terribly strongly. However, while I may not see Assange as the devil, I still say he’s a preening git and a glorified hacker at best. So my reaction to this film was one of ambivalence and disinterest, to be honest. I was largely bored.

 

The funny thing is, Condon spends the first half of the film seemingly slightly in Assange’s corner, and the second half slightly against him, so even the film’s director doesn’t appear to have a strong opinion. It seems like he (or the screenwriter) and I are the only ones who don’t much care, as this is a hot button issue with many, though I’d argue the Average Joe would give far less of a crap about Assange if the sexual assault case hadn’t seemed so dubious. It’s mostly journos and political-types who have been worked up over this.

 

The main point of interest in the film, if there is one, is the performance by Benedict Cumberbatch as Julian Assange, and even that isn’t satisfactory. He doesn’t look remotely like the nerdy, wormy Assange, and I think the actor is all wrong for the part. He’s far too intense for such a weasely, smug little bastard like Assange. He plays him like a mad genius or tortured artist or something. Or, more precisely he plays him like Tasmanian serial killer Martin Bryant. Sheldon Cooper is more like Assange than the miscast Cumberbatch. I also felt he didn’t look old enough to have a 19 year-old son, though I’m sure Mr. Cumberbatch is a bit older than he looks. I will give Cumberbatch credit for one thing, though: His Australian accent is one of the best you’ll ever hear from a non-Australian, even if it’s nowhere near Assange’s own rather refined, almost prissy accent. He seems like he’s struggling to speak at times (he’s an intense actor to say the least), and every now and then he’ll hit the end of a word incorrectly (‘Mo-DEM’ being the most glaring example), but he’s dead-on with it a lot more of the time than I was expecting. Daniel Bruhl probably gives the best performance as this film’s version of Eduardo Saverin. Meanwhile, I don’t know what film Laura Linney, Stanley Tucci, and Anthony Mackie were acting in, but it looked like a lot more fun than this one, that’s for sure. I also wish directors would stop wasting the talents of David Thewlis in nothing roles like this one. It’s hard to get into a film with no likeable characters and where all sides do wrong things. Add to that an over-inflated sense of importance of all this, and a neglect to address the one truly interesting aspect of this story and you get…not much of anything at all, really.

 

Sorry, it’s just not for me, maybe you’ll enjoy this one a whole lot more than me. I found it dry and dull, with Benedict Cumberbatch miscast in the lead.

 

Rating: C