The Fifth Estate

An absolutely disastrous biopic, The Fifth Estate charts the rise of Julian Assange’s (Benedict Cumberbatch) notorious whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks – with the bulk of the movie detailing Assange’s often contentious relationship with his partner, Daniel Domscheit-Berg (Daniel Brühl). Filmmaker Bill Condon, working from Josh Singer’s screenplay, makes virtually no effort to draw the viewer into the cumbersome proceedings, as the film, which unfolds very, very slowly over 125 long minutes, launches directly into the creation of WikiLeaks without bothering to develop either of the central characters – which ultimately ensures that one’s efforts at working up any interest in the protagonists’ exploits fall hopelessly flat. Singer’s episodic script, for the most part, jumps from one touchstone to the next with little thought towards context or momentum, and the film does, as a result, primarily boast the feel of a reenactment that one might find on a cable news network. (This is despite the fine work from stars Cumberbatch and Brühl, with both actors consistently left floundering by Condon’s less-than-competent sensibilities.) And although the narrative ramps up once it passes a certain point (ie the Bradley Manning controversy inevitably dominates the movie’s latter half), The Fifth Estate remains hopelessly uninvolving and frustratingly underwhelming for the duration of its overlong running time – with the end result an aggressively misguided true-life endeavor that contains all the dramatic heft of a Wikipedia entry.

* out of ****