Review of The Fifth Estate (2013) by Tony W — 02 Nov 2013

Cumberbatch is great, but the rest of the movie, not so much. The attempt to give the film more action instead comes off as ADDish. The fact that Assange is wanted for raping two women by Sweden (hardly a prudish or authoritarian country) and refuses to stand trial there arguing that he will be railroaded by them if he does isn't even alluded to until the final moments of the film.

And what I find to be the most interesting moral issue, how one can desire an open world without secrecy and deceit while being highly secretive and deceitful oneself is inadequately addressed. The movie's opinion of Wikileaks (and wikileakers) is muddled, as are my own; and that is understandable.

How a good and experienced director like Condon could muddle the filmmaking is not.