Daniel Domscheit-Berg (Daniel Brühl) was living a dead-end life in Germany. One day, he meets the enigmatic, white-haired genius Julian Assange (Benedict Cumberbatch). Assange wants to let the World Wide Web see what Governments and Corporations don't want the world to see. With Berg's help, he establishes WikiLeaks. For their first leak, they expose corruption in the bank Julius Baer.
Over the next few years, WikiLeaks exposes cover-up after cover-up. But their sources, whom Assange promised anonymity, end up being exposed. And with exposure comes death threats. Over this issue, Berg starts to have second thoughts about associating with Assange.
As realized by director Bill Condon, the movie is average at best. When WikiLeaks starts its thing, we're satisfied to see the Fat Cats fall. As it exposes more cover-ups, we're really thinking about ethics.
But the greatness is diluted by an unusually glacial 128 minutes. When we're not debating ethics, we're wondering what time it is. By the end of the movie, I was one of two people left out of a crowd of five.
The only part that kept me sitting was Cumberbatch. He's a good match, physical and voice-wise, to Assange. He certainly has his International Man of Mystery persona down. His ending monologue, which lambasts the possibility of this movie, made me wonder if that was really Assange (since Assange has publicly disavowed the movie).
The Fifth Estate didn't bore me to annoyance like Anna Karenina did. But I kinda wish it earnestly glued me to the screen more. Still, it should make for an OK onetime viewing on a matinee.
No comments:
Post a Comment