Julian Assange: A Modern Day Hero?

Promoted as offering a “revealing three hours of in-depth footage,” this overlong but underwhelming endeavor plays more like a commercial for the notorious WikiLeaks website than a solid documentary. The first hour follows the Australian-born Assange as he orchestrates the controversial 2010 online data-dumping of top-secret U.S. military and diplomatic documents, gleefully whipping up a media frenzy with the release of the classified material. Unfortunately, this profile never goes into depth on the controversies that dogged Assange afterward, including attempts by the Swedish government to seek his extradition to face sexual assault charges. The remainder of the program consists of two one-hour lectures that Assange delivered before the leaks occurred. Both of these speeches, which focus exclusively on the WikiLeaks mission, are amateurishly videotaped and fairly dull (it's not even clear where or when these talks took place). Responsibility for this strange production is difficult to determine, since director credits go to “A.N. Other,” and the producer is listed as “John Smith.” One can only assume that the filmmakers were either afraid for their careers or ashamed of their work. Either way, the viewer winds up losing three hours without gaining much insight into Assange or his mission. Not recommended. Aud: C, P. (P. Hall)