Review of Risk (2017) by Patrick L — 15 Jun 2017

"It's not as strong as director Laura Poitras' previous achievement "Citizenfour" but "Risk" is a compelling documentary that explores the world Julian Assange and his inner circle created and it's major impact on a divisive American election.".

Movie Review: Risk.

Date Viewed: May 17 2017.

Written and Directed By Laura Poitras (Flag Wars, My Country, My Country, The Oath and Citizenfour).

Starring: Julian Assange, Laura Poitras and Sarah Harrison.

In this new world order we currently live in, one man is willing to risk everything to expose the world's most classified secrets. Julian Assange is the main topic for Laura Poitras' latest film "Risk", a compelling documentary that has real espionage and thrills. "Risk" also plays as a fascinating character study because we get to know more about the infamous whistleblower. "Risk" was filmed over the course of six years and director Poitras spend a great amount of time with Assange. Their relationship got tense and they didn't trust each other on some areas. Nevertheless, both Poitras and Assange patched together a really good film.

With a running time of only 87 minutes, "Risk" explores the main flashpoints in Assange's life such as the building of a whistleblowing website called Wikileaks, his application for political asylum in the Ecuadorean embassy in London, his 2010 leaks involving the Collateral Murder video, the Afghanistan and Iraq war logs and CableGate and of course his impact on the 2016 American election.

During the time of the leaks in 2010, the U.S. government led a criminal investigation into Assange and Wikileaks and Sweden slapped Assange with rape allegations which he bluntly denies. With the possibly of being extradited from Sweden to the United States to face criminal charges, Assange applies for political asylum in the Ecuadorean embassy in London. We also see how Assange got to the embassy just as the authorities were closing their tail on him, he put on a disguise, wig and glued-on mustache just to stay hidden from the UK police.

Assange then played a prominent role in the 2016 American election when Wikileaks began dumping emails and documents from the Democratic National Committee (DNC) which suggest that they favored Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders because he's a socialist and he will end all the wars that they and George W. Bush started. Wikileaks dumped the emails and documents during the eve of the Democratic National Convention and this forced Debbie Wasserman Schultz to resign from her position as DNC chair. Also during the convention, mass protests which mostly consist of Bernie supporters began erupting with chants of "No More Wars!" and "Lock Her Up!". When we got to October, Wikileaks began publishing more emails and documents but from Hillary's private email server and those emails included her paid-speeches to elite Wall Street firms. This story wasn't covered a lot in the news because all they cared about was bashing Trump over and over again.

Hillary seemed like she was on the path to winning the presidency after the release of Trump's Access Hollywood tape but thanks to those Wikileaks dumps and James Comey's reopening of the investigation into her emails, Hillary lost instead while Trump won the election. The Dems lost big that election night but Hillary, Obama, the Democrats and the mainstream news organizations didn't think she lost because of her email scandal or Comey's letter, they all pointed the finger at Russia at believing that they interfered in their election. This story is entirely a hoax, a scam, not true and so damn wrong. Assange explains that Trump is entirely unpredictable but come on was there a better choice? On the other hand, you could've helped Bernie more or Jill Stein.

The other two key players in the movie are Wikileaks editor Sarah Harrison and Laura Poitras herself who speaks behind the camera. Harrison provided tremendous resources to the organization but in 2013 she accompanied NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden on a flight from Hong Kong to Moscow to seek political asylum. She helped deliver Snowden to safety but she may never return to the UK due to legal reasons. As for Poitras, she explains that during the making of the film, she returned home to her apartment to find her door open. This leads Poitras to believe that the government is on her trail too and I can't imagine why. How is Wikileaks doing right now? They're still kicking ass and plus Chelsea Manning who helped provide the 2010 leaks to Assange is being released from prison today.

"Risk" is not as strong as Poitras' Oscar-winning doc "Citizenfour" but this is a movie that explores the world Assange and his inner circle created and it's major impact on a divisive American election. "Risk" is not just a documentary, it's also a brave and complex story about one man who's willing to sacrifice his personal freedoms just so he can reveal the actual truth to the world.