Uncover the Truth With “The Fifth Estate”

“The Fifth Estate” revolves around WikiLeaks’ founder Julian Assange, and his release of controversial and life-changing information.

The plot’s climax deals with the leak of about 250,000 United States cables of confidential information, which eventually exposes the threat of harming sources.

The film has several strengths and weaknesses. Before going into the more principal aspects of the film, it is important to commend the filmmakers on their vibrant and appealing opening graphics as well as illustrative and symbolic imagery. In addition, the casting worked very much to its advantage, especially with regards to Benedict Cumberbatch portrayal of Assange.

That being said, the movie was a wonderful enlightenment of Assange’s internal complexity as a thoughtful yet relentless hacker of the truth. The film portrays Assange as a brilliant yet selfish leader of WikiLeaks, while enforcing the image with dialogue and scenes about his childhood traumas.

However, the central focus of the movie relied not so much on the ethics of journalism and the imminence of freedom of speech. Instead, the plot focused heavily on the dynamic of the friendship between Assange and his appointed partner, Daniel Domscheit-Berg (Daniel Brühl). The internal struggle for righteousness brings a gnarly split between Assange and Domscheit-Berg, and as portrayed by the film, is the cause of the downfall for WikiLeaks.

The movie successfully exhibits the good and bad characteristics of Julian Assange, but fails to answer thoroughly the question about what measures ought to be taken to draw the journalistic line between revealing corruption to the public and sacrificing the lives of others.

This is a successful drama in that it has several layers of complexity, yet is still easy to follow for someone who may not know much about the WikiLeaks scandal.

The largest concern for this movie is whether or not it is an accurate enough presentation of the scandal that occurred in 2011. If it is, there ought to be much praise given to the producers and directors of “The Fifth Estate” for harnessing the power of the incident and presenting it in such a theatrical manner. If it is not, as the real Julian Assange himself claims, then the dramatic elements, including the portrayal of Assange as an ego-centric, borderline disturbed man would negatively affect the film.