The Fifth Estate

Films about a certain person(s) or events, otherwise known as biopics, can be about those that are as diverse as black is to white. They can be about a captain of a tanker being hijacked as with this year's "Captain Phillips", George, the king of England in "The King's Speech", Elizabeth, queen of England in "The Queen", Julia Childs in "Julie & Julia", Margaret Thatcher in "The Iron Lady", FDR in "Hyde Park on Hudson", Marilyn Monroe in "My Week with Marilyn", Billy Bean in "Moneyball", and now we have Julian Assange in "The Fifth Estate".

This story begins as Wikileaks founder Julian Assange (Benedict Cumberbatch) and his colleague Daniel Domscheit-Berg (Daniel Bruhl) team up to become underground watchdogs of the privileged and powerful. On a shoestring, they create a platform that allows whistleblowers to anonymously leak covert data, shining a light on the dark recesses of government secrets and corporate crimes. It gets so involved that Daniel brings in Marcus (Moritz Bleibtreu), friend of many years to help out, and also Ziggy (Jamie Blackley) is subsequently brought in as well. 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, state department officials, Sarah Shaw (Laura Linney), and James Boswell (Stanley Tucci) are motivated to get involved. As Assange and Berg battle with each other over revolution vs. morals vs. principles, they must face 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?

Others to round out the cast are Anthony Mackie as Sam Coulson, David Thewlis as Nick Davies, Alicia Vixanders as Anke Domscheit, Peter Caraldi as Alan Rusbridger, Carice van Houten as Birgitta, Alexander Siddig as Dr. Tarek Haliseh, Michael Kranz as Otto, Dan Stevens as Ian Katz, and Alexander Beyer as Marcel Rosenbach.

This was well paced with just the right amount of intensity and emotion from director Bill Condon ("Sister, Sister" '87, "Dead in the Water" (TV movie), '91, "The Man Who Wouldn't Die" (TV movie) '94, "Gods and Monsters" '98, "Kinsey" '04, "Dreamgirls" '06, "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn--Part 1" '11, "Tilda" (TV movie) '11, "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn--Part 2" '12). It's amazing how Condon can showcase a character's fear through anger so realistically that it's mind-boggling, but this guy is an incredible director. This was adequately written by Josh Singer which was based on the books, "Inside Wikileaks: My Time with Julian Assange at the World's Most Dangerous Website" by Daniel Domscheit-Berg and "Wikileaks: Inside Julian Assange's War on Secrecy" by David Leigh and Luke Harding. This was written fairly solid, except that it was just a little long-in-the-tooth and were a couple of inconsistencies, otherwise kept your eyes peeled, especially during the second half of the film. Cumberbatch was brilliant in the lead role, so much so, he could get a nod come Oscar time. I'll tell you, if Assange's character was anything as this depicts, he definitely had severe trust issues with just about anyone in his life.

If you're into biopics, and specifically about those people who attempt to expose 'the system' for what it's worth, and who isn't, one will surely get the message here, and that message is: is Assange and Berg biting off more than they can chew?

Out of 4 Stars: 3.5                        Rated: R                         128mins.