The Fifth Estate **** (2013, Benedict Cumberbatch, Daniel Brühl, Carice van Houten, Laura Linney, Stanley Tucci, Peter Capaldi, David Thewlis) – Movie Review

Benedict Cumberbatch’s Wikileaks film has topped a list of 2013’s movie flops. The Fifth Estate, in which Cumberbatch plays WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, had a budget of $28 million (£17.1 million) and earned just $6 million (£3.6 million) at the global box office. That means the film earned back only 21 per cent of its budget.

Now this is a shame because director Bill Condon’s real-life thriller is a gripping, intelligent, serious-minded movie, telling an important story, and telling it excitingly as it hops from one country to another, as quickly as the two main characters, Assange and his colleague Daniel Domscheit-Berg (Daniel Brühl), seem to have done in real life. A longish film is well paced, fast moving and gripping throughout, even with lots of dialogue and plot exposition.

It never once flags. You never lose interest for a second. You realise you have to pay full attention to follow the plot and all the details, so you do. The story focuses profitably on the rather odd and abrasive relationship between the quirky two men. This gives the film its centre and a lot of the tension that it is bristling with. Cumberbatch and his co-star Daniel Brühl do really well with these roles.

Brühl is an intense, fiery little scene-stealer, pinching the movie from under the star’s nose like he did in Rush with Chris Hemsworth. It has been a very good year for Brühl.

Once you gets used to Cumberbatch’s odd way of speaking as Assange and his odder wig, his performance slots in nicely and pulls you in. Even if he never looks like him, he can suggest him. Cumberbatch makes him a bit chilly and obsessed, but vaguely likeable.

You would not want him as your best friend though. I guess that is the point. His Assange look as though he never bathes or changes his socks and knickers. The real Cumberbatch looks like a man who showers three times a day.

The version of the Assange story we have here is based on two books, Daniel Domscheit-Berg‘s Inside WikiLeaks: My Time with Julian Assange at the World’s Most Dangerous Website and WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange’s War on Secrecy by Luke Harding and David Leigh. Now that does mean Josh Singer’s screenplay tells a particular version of the story, and it looks a lot like Berg’s version. His character emerges really well in the movie.

What we do not have is Assange’s version, though this film does seem to treat him very fairly as a bit of a tarnished angel and strenuously avoids demonising him, or turning him into a crusading saint for that matter.

Nevertheless, On September 18 2013, Wikileaks released a mature version of the complete script to the public, because, they said, ‘the film is, from WikiLeaks’ perspective, irresponsible, counterproductive and harmful.’ They also published a Talking Points memo ‘because it represents a frank internal appraisal of the film and what is wrong with it.’

The Fifth Estate certainly has sins of omission, avoiding certain crucial issues, mostly about Assange’s sex life and the story or fate of the US army whistleblower, now securely locked up by the outraged American authorities. This is a shade frustrating.

Assange’s close relationship with The Guardian newspaper is sharply in focus, though presumably with The Guardian’s approval in a version that they must like. Peter Capaldi plays editor Alan Rusbridger and David Thewlis plays reporter Nick Davies. Somehow The Guardian emerges only partly well from this version of the story.

So what’s the story? Assange (Benedict Cumberbatch) meets by chance and teams up with computer wiz Berg (Daniel Brühl) and they create an internet platform that allows whistle-blowers anonymously to leak covert data to the world. Working on a shoestring and relying on public donations, they quickly become and internet sensation with their revelations of government secrets and corporate crimes.

In no time, they are breaking more hard news than the all world’s media organizations combined, attracting the attention of those organizations who try to use them and their scoops to sell newspapers. But, when Assange and Berg are offered the biggest trove of confidential intelligence documents in US history, they start to get way out of their depth and fall out over how to handle it.

The film’s sub-plot involving American diplomats Sarah Shaw (Laura Linney) and James Boswell (Stanley Tucci) seems much less interesting and satisfactorily handled. It is muddily told and hard to get a handle on here.

Actually the film could have done without it altogether. It is really just all about Assange and Berg, and when it focuses on their relationship and their plotting and handling of the issues involved, it’s just great. As that’s most of the time, great!

At the end of the day, Assange looks like a man who took on the bad guys and lost. He gained a loyal true friend and lost him. He got swept up in his own story, became a media star and swallowed his own publicity. He fell for it. This is a tragic tale of a good man destroyed in his crusade for a better world. The bad guys win. No wonder it didn’t do well at the box office.

This is bad news for cinema-goers. We need more films like this. This failure will just encourage more mindless movies.

Assange emailed Cumberbatch to ask him to not to participate in the film. Brühl replaced James McAvoy, who dropped out because of scheduling conflicts with his stage play Macbeth.

The character Ziggy is based on the WikiLeaks Volunteer Sigurdur Thordarson, who turned out to be an FBI informant.

© Derek Winnert 2013 Movie Review

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com

Daniel Brühl