The Fifth Estate (2013)

• Year: 2013
• Released: 18 Oct 2013
• Country: United States, India, Belgium
• Adwords: 2 wins & 3 nominations
• IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1837703/
• Rotten Tomatoes: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/The_Fifth_Estate
• Metacritics: https://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-fifth-estate
• Available in: 720p, 1080p,
• Language: English, Icelandic, Swahili, Arabic
• MPA Rating: R
• Genre: Biography, Crime, Drama
• Runtime: 128 min
• Writer: Daniel Domscheit-Berg, David Leigh, Luke Harding
• Director: Bill Condon
• Cast: Benedict Cumberbatch, Daniel Brühl, Carice van Houten
• Keywords: biography, journalist, internet, activist, information leak,

	6.2/10
	49/100
	35% – Critics
	36% – Audience

The Fifth Estate Storyline

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 whistle-blowers 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?

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The Fifth Estate Movie Reviews

I actually liked it

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.

Leaks r Us

There is an energy to the Wikileaks movie but the screenplay is just so plain that you just know the film is contrived by trying hard to be exciting.

The Fifth Estate is about the biggest whistleblowers in history and the fractious relationship between Julian Assange (Benedict Cumberbatch) and Daniel Domscheit-Berg (Daniel Bruhl.)

The film is based partly on a book written by Daniel Domscheit-Berg and it shows. He comes across as a more sympathetic character. We even get pointless scenes with his girlfriend who acts has his social conscious.

We see how the main characters met, both having an interest in online activism culminating in the release of the the Afghan War Logs in 2010. Then the release of the material obtained by Bradley Manning and the worldwide fallout it caused.

Assange increasingly appears to be an egoist. An unhinged liar, someone who lies easily and fails to protect his sources. It helps that Assange has been holed up in the Ecuadorian Embassy for the last few years wanted for rape charges in Sweden.

It is simply a case of a movie that was rushed out to capitalise on the news headlines caused by the Wikileaks saga. There was not enough time for a better script.

Not a hater or a supporter

The movie starts two years before the seminal leak of US government data by WikiLeaks. Julian Assange (Benedict Cumberbatch) coming off of his work in Kenyan takes on Daniel Domscheit-Berg (Daniel Brühl) as part of the team. Julian tells him that they have an army of volunteers, but pretty soon, he finds that they are mostly alone in the work. The whistle blowers start bringing in more and more shocking revelations, and catches the eyes of Guardian reporter Nick Davies (David Thewlis).

There seems to be a lot of Assange supporters hating on this movie big time. I’m neither supporter nor detractor. I’m just a guy who watches too many movies. Unless you think Assange is God, I doubt there’s too much objectionable material in this movie.

Cumberbatch does a good job as a mercurial mysterious Assange. I do wish for a greater insight into his life, but this movie is mostly told through the POV of Berg. Daniel Brühl is a little bland. It makes me appreciate the superior work of Andrew Garfield in ‘The Social Network’ playing opposite another computer pioneer.

I’m good with its depiction of the computer world inside WikiLeaks as a series of desks. However when Berg finds out that there is only Assange and him in the room, the desks need to disappear leaving only two. Turning the other people into Assange is cute, but it’s more visually honest to faze out the other desks.

I’m not so good with the preaching at the end. The movie wants to end, but the writers force David Thewlis to put in the two cents on the fourth and fifth estates. Then the stuff that Assange says is as forgettable as it gets. More than anything, it feels very dishonest unless he actually said those words. It seems the real Assange is much more angry at the movie than is depicted.