Movies: The Fifth Estate

(Drivebycuriosity) - Julian Assange is a controversial person. The Australian journalist turned his obsession with the secrets of others into a career as a hacker and started a global disclosure organization, called WikiLeaks. Their exposures have been imperiling the lives of informers and are supporting terrorist groups because they are giving them informations about countermeasures. Now Assange is hiding in the Ecuadorian embassy in London to evade an European Arrest Warrant against him because of an alleged rape.

The movie "The Fifth Estate" (imdb) shows Assange as a kind of religious leader and Wikileads as a cult. It is tedious to watch Assanges ego-trips and the almost fanatical obedience of his followers. The hectically and jittery dolly shots in many scenes make this worse. The film tries to be very cool, but it looks like a cheap European TV production, partly because of the cast, which consists predominantly of European TV actors, and partly because of the stereotype shots of Berlin´s party scene and similar pictures.

The talents of  Benedict Cumberbatch, who plays a marvelous Sherlock Holmes in the homonymous British TV series, are wasted. Stanley Tucci delivers some of the rare bright spots of the flick thanks to his humorous and balanced style.

"The Fifth Estate" is a disappointment.