The Fifth Estate

Based on real events, this edgy, dramatic thriller looks at the cyber-power wielded by Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks. The story begins when arrogant Australian anarchist Assange (Benedict Cumberbatch), who is determined to use his database to uncover corporate fraud and government corruption, is joined by idealistic partner/assistant Daniel Domscheit-Berg (Daniel Brühl). Railing against injustice, the pair bring down Swiss banking group Julius Baer, uncover Kenyan death squads, disclose the identities of neo-Nazi British National Party members, and post a video illustrating how the murder of two Reuters journalists in Iraq was covered up by U.S. troops. But all that is window dressing compared to WikiLeaks' publication—in conjunction with The New York Times, London's The Guardian, and Germany's Der Spiegel—of Bradley Manning's stolen classified military documents and diplomatic cables from Iraq and Afghanistan. The thorny ethical problem lies in the fact that the WikiLeaks posting of un-redacted names threatens the lives of loyal informers. Wearing a white wig, British actor Cumberbatch powerfully embodies megalomaniacal Assange's ruthless manipulation, while Brühl is fine as his rational counterpoint (Laura Linney, Stanley Tucci, and David Thewlis lend support). Based on Inside WikiLeaks: My Time with Julian Assange at the World's Most Dangerous Website by Domscheit-Berg and WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange's War on Secrecy by David Leigh and Luke Harding, filmmaker Bill Condon's The Fifth Estate unfortunately offers too little in the way of unbiased backstory and too much feverish frenzy while exploring the nature of 21st-century Internet journalism—which seemingly lacks any semblance of accountability. Optional. (S. Granger)