The Fifth Estate, which sadly is not related to The Fifth Element, is a journalistic thriller about Wikileaks and the ivory-haired Aussie activist behind it, Julian Assange. (For those keeping track of estates, that’s: [1] clergy, [2] nobility, [3] commoners, and [4] press; and [5] blogs, or to focus on a particular site with a slightly more lofty goal than click-bait headlines and animated GIFs, Wikileaks.)
In case you’ve just come to from a three-year hibernation, Wikileaks is a site designed to provide anonymity to whistleblowers — a rag-tag, barebones website bent on speaking truth to power through the release of unedited documents damning the corrupt. The release of unedited documents is the main focus of the drama here.
And that unedited bit is important. After all, “editing is a form of bias,” Benedict Cumberbatch’s Assange reminds us, and the idea of complete objectivity in reporting without it is a myth — which is why the rest of this setence has not been edittidd for speling. Truff.
Game of Thrones, the late, great Cousin Matthew, Jason Bourne and more after the jump!
In case you’ve just come to from a three-year hibernation, Wikileaks is a site designed to provide anonymity to whistleblowers — a rag-tag, barebones website bent on speaking truth to power through the release of unedited documents damning the corrupt. The release of unedited documents is the main focus of the drama here.
And that unedited bit is important. After all, “editing is a form of bias,” Benedict Cumberbatch’s Assange reminds us, and the idea of complete objectivity in reporting without it is a myth — which is why the rest of this setence has not been edittidd for speling. Truff.
Game of Thrones, the late, great Cousin Matthew, Jason Bourne and more after the jump!
Of course, truth is something rarely found on the shiny screens at your local cineplex, and The Fifth Estate suffers from some of the same issues plaguing many (or most) Hollywood productions based on historical events: It takes liberties with history to please the crowd.
But, even with fudging the details to craft a more tense thriller, it never gets to the greatness of other superior, suspense-soaked whistleblower films like The Insider, The Constant Gardener or Michael Clayton. (That was based on a true story, right? No matter...) There’s enough missing and altered about this tale of the events that kept Wikileaks in the international spotlight between 2010 and 2011, that it’s best to consider this fiction inspired by actual events rather than based on them.
The things that you’d incorrectly assume from watching The Fifth Estate include, but are not limited to: why Assange has white hair, how un-redacted confidential documents exposing undercover operatives came into the public sphere, and what happened when Assange and one-time Wikileaks spokesperson Daniel Domscheit-Berg have their inevitable fallout.
And there’s an even bigger issue that feels omitted. When you’re touching on a gray area where every single good deed must be weighed against the bad to get anything close to a clear, scientific answer to the question “Is Wikileaks good?”, it seems a shame to leave off of the “good” scoreboard the possibility that Assange and Co.’s actions may have led to a domino effect that changed the face of the Middle East: Exposing corruption in Tunisia which helped set into motion the Arab Spring.
Some of the Hollywood-ization works and feels less irresponsible. Since we’ve now established there can’t be international suspense unless someone is escaping a hostile territory just moments before the baddies realize their true identity (looking at you, Argo), The Fifth Estate also hops around the globe showing us the effects Assange’s leaks are having on everyone from a D.C. diplomat to an informant in the Middle East. There are some genuinely tense moments here, and it gives the film a Jason Bourne-type espionage flair — with less hand to hand combat and car chases.
There's plenty that The Fifth Estate does well. There's some interesting imagery to take in, including the opening scene's montage of the birth of information from the printed word to the Internet, and a repeated surreal visual of a never-ending newsroom with rows of empty, identical desks set on a snowy field. We also get some minor characters played by some recognizable faces from TV — Downton Abbey's Cousin Matthew (Dan Stevens), the red-headed lady who births out shadow monsters on HBO's Game of Thrones (Carice van Houten),
At the top of the list of positives: Benedict Cumbertach is lost in the role of Julian Assange. Even those who would shout “Sherlock” upon seeing him on the street rather than calling out his Christian name will find their memories wiped of the man behind the character.
Cumberbatch’s Assange is fascinating and flawed. He's manipulative with a massive ego, but you can kind of feel for the guy. This is a man who has left the normal world behind — clocking out permanently and sentencing himself to a life on the run from CIA spooks and thugs with foreign powers that would love to see his mouthpiece silenced. But even when he's a prick, he remains a man of strong convictions — right or wrong. He realizes many want to make the world a better place but oh so few are willing to sacrifice their comfort to achieve the causes they claim to hold dear.
The ending of The Fifth Estate gets weak (at one point they actually use the name of the movie in the movie — I was cringing in anticipation feeling it coming) but then things turn around with a funny, quite unexpected twist in the final minutes before credits roll.
Overall, if you can overlook the factual issues, this semi-fictional version of recent events can be a springboard for some heated J-school debate on the idea of morals and traditional journalism versus the kind of complete and utter transparency of the Internet age. Is it wrong to release information that may endanger the lives of some if it will expose corruption from those in power? It's a tough question to answer, and the longest lasting takeaway from this passable, though somewhat forgettable thriller.
--Eric Pulsifer
But, even with fudging the details to craft a more tense thriller, it never gets to the greatness of other superior, suspense-soaked whistleblower films like The Insider, The Constant Gardener or Michael Clayton. (That was based on a true story, right? No matter...) There’s enough missing and altered about this tale of the events that kept Wikileaks in the international spotlight between 2010 and 2011, that it’s best to consider this fiction inspired by actual events rather than based on them.
The things that you’d incorrectly assume from watching The Fifth Estate include, but are not limited to: why Assange has white hair, how un-redacted confidential documents exposing undercover operatives came into the public sphere, and what happened when Assange and one-time Wikileaks spokesperson Daniel Domscheit-Berg have their inevitable fallout.
And there’s an even bigger issue that feels omitted. When you’re touching on a gray area where every single good deed must be weighed against the bad to get anything close to a clear, scientific answer to the question “Is Wikileaks good?”, it seems a shame to leave off of the “good” scoreboard the possibility that Assange and Co.’s actions may have led to a domino effect that changed the face of the Middle East: Exposing corruption in Tunisia which helped set into motion the Arab Spring.
Some of the Hollywood-ization works and feels less irresponsible. Since we’ve now established there can’t be international suspense unless someone is escaping a hostile territory just moments before the baddies realize their true identity (looking at you, Argo), The Fifth Estate also hops around the globe showing us the effects Assange’s leaks are having on everyone from a D.C. diplomat to an informant in the Middle East. There are some genuinely tense moments here, and it gives the film a Jason Bourne-type espionage flair — with less hand to hand combat and car chases.
There's plenty that The Fifth Estate does well. There's some interesting imagery to take in, including the opening scene's montage of the birth of information from the printed word to the Internet, and a repeated surreal visual of a never-ending newsroom with rows of empty, identical desks set on a snowy field. We also get some minor characters played by some recognizable faces from TV — Downton Abbey's Cousin Matthew (Dan Stevens), the red-headed lady who births out shadow monsters on HBO's Game of Thrones (Carice van Houten),
At the top of the list of positives: Benedict Cumbertach is lost in the role of Julian Assange. Even those who would shout “Sherlock” upon seeing him on the street rather than calling out his Christian name will find their memories wiped of the man behind the character.
Cumberbatch’s Assange is fascinating and flawed. He's manipulative with a massive ego, but you can kind of feel for the guy. This is a man who has left the normal world behind — clocking out permanently and sentencing himself to a life on the run from CIA spooks and thugs with foreign powers that would love to see his mouthpiece silenced. But even when he's a prick, he remains a man of strong convictions — right or wrong. He realizes many want to make the world a better place but oh so few are willing to sacrifice their comfort to achieve the causes they claim to hold dear.
The ending of The Fifth Estate gets weak (at one point they actually use the name of the movie in the movie — I was cringing in anticipation feeling it coming) but then things turn around with a funny, quite unexpected twist in the final minutes before credits roll.
Overall, if you can overlook the factual issues, this semi-fictional version of recent events can be a springboard for some heated J-school debate on the idea of morals and traditional journalism versus the kind of complete and utter transparency of the Internet age. Is it wrong to release information that may endanger the lives of some if it will expose corruption from those in power? It's a tough question to answer, and the longest lasting takeaway from this passable, though somewhat forgettable thriller.
--Eric Pulsifer
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