THE FIFTH ESTATE is certainly an intriguing piece of work - not least for the fact that it hasn't made up its mind about how view the central character. Played with narcissistic grace by Benedict Cumberbatch - in one of his best film roles to days - Julian Assange comes across as both obsessive and righteous, impossible to live with yet possessed of firm convictions, haunted by his past yet dedicated to improving the future. His relationship with Daniel Berg (Daniel Bruhl) is a combustible one; Assange doesn't want his partner around yet can't seem to operate without him. Eventually the two of them break up for good, and Assange is quite literally hoist by his own hubristic petard. Structurally speaking. Bill Condon's film is particularly flashy - full of rapid cuts and awkward zooms. Sometimes it becomes rather irritating in its attempt to stress the central theme; despite Assange's assertions to the contrary, Wikileaks was not a worldwide organization but a two-person operation. The repeated shots of office desks, peopled by clones of Assange, emphasize the protagonist's ambitious, if somewhat unrealistic, dreams. Eventually the flashiness gets in the way of the film's resolution, especially at the end, when the shots of burning books and campfires seem especially unnecessary, and Nick Davies' (David Thewlis') concluding speech is nothing short of tendentious. Nonetheless THE FIFTH ESTATE remains perversely watchable, if only to witness the extreme yet ineffectual reactions of US government officials (played by Stanley Tucci and Laura Linney), once the extent of the leaks becomes evident.
Review of The Fifth Estate
