Despite presenting a nuanced look at the rise of WikiLeaks, The Fifth Estate movie suffers from a heavy-handed script that lacks subtlety and emotional heft.
Based largely on the tell-all books — Inside WikiLeaks: My Time with Julian Assange at the World's Most Dangerous Website by former spokesman Daniel Domscheit-Berg, and WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange's War on Secrecy by Guardian journalists David Leigh and Luke Harding — the film follows WikiLeaks' ascent from underground website to international watchdog with the power to topple governments and corporations.
While it's billed as a political thriller, The Fifth Estate is also part buddy film. Director Bill Condon (Kinsey, Dreamgirls) humanizes a complicated real-life and still developing narrative by focusing on the tumultuous relationship between WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange (played by Benedict Cumberbatch) and Domscheit-Berg (Daniel Brühl).
(L-R) Daniel Domscheit-Berg (played by Daniel Brühl) and Julian Assange (Benedict Cumberbatch) share a tumultuous relationship in The Fifth Estate
The film spans three years, starting in 2007, when mentor and protégé first meet at the 24th Chaos Communication Congress in Berlin. It continues until July 2010, when The New York Times, The Guardian and Der Spiegel — in conjunction with WikiLeaks — release articles based on more than 91,000 classified U.S. military documents from the Afghan War.
While The Fifth Estate portrays Assange in an even-handed manner, both he and Domscheit-Berg eventually fall into the shopworn roles of reckless visionary and cautious pragmatist, respectively. Cumberbatch gives a magnetic performance as a swashbuckling Assange who bulldozes anyone who blocks his crusade for transparency.
Paired with Brühl's sympathetic portrayal of Domscheit-Berg as his conscience, however, The Fifth Estate is ultimately skewed in favor of the pragmatist.
For much of the film, Assange insists that "WikiLeaks doesn't edit," and he refuses to redact the Afghan War logs.
But unlike his detractors, Assange's motivations are never fully fleshed out — a disservice to moviegoers — and therefore unconvincing.
(L-R) The core members of the WikiLeaks team, Julian Assange (Benedict Cumberbatch), Icelandic politician Birgitta Jónsdóttir (Carice van Houten), Daniel Domscheit-Berg (Daniel Brühl) and hacker Marcus (Moritz Bleibtreu).
Debates about radical transparency and its effect on national security, personal privacy and confidentiality weigh heavily on the dialogue. Characters spell out these issues a little too plainly in a film that would have benefited from including more room for interpretation. It feels as though writer Josh Singer decided to jam as much context as possible into The Fifth Estate at the expense of a subtler, more sophisticated script. Another downside to such exhaustive material is that it distracts viewers from connecting emotionally with the characters.
Despite occasionally getting mired in details, the film is adept at distilling complex issues into a fast-paced 124 minutes. Condon also succeeds in taking a plot that lacks visual interest, skillfully translating it onscreen. For instance, after Domscheit-Berg shuts down WikiLeaks' servers, Assange's panicked reaction is dramatized in a surreal scene that shows Assange standing in a post-apocalyptic-style environment with flaming documents raining down. In multiple scenes, text messages and code are superimposed onto the screen.
(L-R) U.S. government officials Sarah Shaw (Laura Linney) and James Boswell (Stanley Tucci).
Ultimately, however, The Fifth Estate's skill at capturing the human drama behind WikiLeaks in a visually arresting way isn't enough to make this fantasy more gripping than reality.
The Good: The film is visually compelling — impressive especially because its plot is not ideal for visual storytelling. Director Bill Condon also skillfully builds suspense throughout the movie.
The Bad: The script is bogged down by too much context, resulting in a lack of subtlety onscreen and emotional connection to viewers.
Bottom Line: The Fifth Estate is a competently made political thriller that's worth seeing, but don't expect too much complexity. We give it 2.5 stars out of 4 stars.
The Fifth Estate arrives in theaters on Oct. 18.
Images: Walt Disney Pictures