The Fifth Estate, 2013.
Directed by Bill Condon.
Starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Daniel Bruhl, Anthony Mackie, David Thewlis, Alicia Vikander, Stanley Tucci, and Laura Linney.
SYNOPSIS:
A dramatic thriller based on real events that reveals the quest to expose the deceptions and corruptions of power that turned an Internet upstart into the 21st century’s most fiercely debated organization.
The Fifth Estate is a dramatic thriller based on true events that charts the rise of one of the most influential organisations of the 21st century, Wikileaks, and their quest to expose the deceptions and corruptions of those in power.
Without knowing too much of the story before I sat down to watch this, I really had no idea what I was in for. I’d only heard of Julian Assange and Wikileaks on the news but never actually sat down to find out more. I thought that this might have been a problem as I expected that my lack of knowledge might lead me to not understand everything that was happening; thankfully though, this was not a problem.
The film starts off with a wonderful credit sequence which charts the evolution of the press over the years in both an aggressive and wonderfully technical manner – effectively setting the tone of the film and giving you clues as to how the story might develop.
We pick up with our two leads, Daniel Berg and Julian Assange (played by Daniel Brühl and Benedict Cumberbatch respectively) meeting for the first time. It’s an interesting meeting as they don’t seem to have any immediate connection other than Berg’s fascination with what Assange is doing with Wikileaks. Berg follows Assange like a fan would follow a rock star and it’s only through his persistence that they become friends – and it’s this friendship that is the centre of this story.
The story follows Berg and Assange on a globetrotting adventure as they uncover corruption, war crimes and more across the world and we watch on as their relationship becomes strained by the intense pressures that they’ve drawn upon themselves. This pressure slowly turns the slight differences between them into something greater and the conflict between idealism and egocentricity helps give this film a fitting and surprisingly rousing conclusion.
Without going into much more detail on this story, as some of it has to be seen to be believed, there is a lot to fit in. Surprisingly though, despite how much information you’re bombarded with, the film is an incredibly coherent piece of work that doesn’t leave out any details while respecting you enough to assume that you’ll understand it all.
Of course, with a script as complex and pacy as this, you’ll need a cast that stands up to it and thankfully the cast do an excellent job. From top to bottom, the entire cast should be commended for infusing such a dense topic with so much life and verve. The real stars of the show though are of course Brühl and Cumberbatch, who play off each other marvellously and are to be congratulated for portraying each character with all the flaws that both men most likely have in real life.
The one minor issue I had with this film is that it’s a little biased towards one or two of the characters. You have to remember when watching this film that it was based on two books, one written by Daniel Berg and the second written by journalists David Leigh and Luke Harding, and as such doesn’t show all sides of the story – Assange may have a slightly different opinion on how things actually happened.
All in all, this film is an intelligent and fast-paced thriller that should be watched just to learn more about a story that’s shocking, surprising and at times downright unbelievable.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★
Ozzy Armstrong is a Stargate and Rocky superfan. Follow him on Twitter.
Originally published February 17, 2014. Updated April 11, 2018.
