the fresh films reviews

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The Fifth Estate (2013)

Director:
Bill Condon
COUNTRY
USA/India
GENRE
Drama/Thriller
NORWEGIAN TITLE
The Fifth Estate
RUNNING TIME
128 minutes
Producer:
Steve Golin
Brad Dorros
Michael Sugar
Screenwriter:
Josh Singer


Cast includes:

CHARACTER ACTOR/ACTRESS RATING
Julian Assange Benedict Cumberbatch
Daniel Domscheit-Berg Daniel Brühl
Sam Coulson Anthony Mackie
Nick Davies David Thewlis ½
Marcus Moritz Bleibtreu
Anke Domscheit-Berg Alicia Vikander
James Boswell Stanley Tucci
Sarah Shaw Laura Linney
Dr. Tarek Haliseh Alexander Siddig

 

Review

Much like The Social Network, this film about WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange shows its protagonist as a misanthropic and destructive enigma running a tight ship. Like Mark Zuckerberg is portrayed in the aforementioned film, Assange doesn't seem to have any charisma or spark, apart from his own bitterness. This is an obvious pitfall for a film made on the basis of a manuscript written by one embittered (or at least heavily critical) ex-accomplice, in this case Daniel Domscheit-Berg. The result is a film full of bias, technicalities and conversations between two persons – Berg and Assange – but really not much else. We never come close to understanding Assange and getting under his skin, arguably because Berg never did. And because of the lacking material, director Bill Condon constructs his film as a mystery thriller full of paranoia and tension which is not accounted for dramatically. Benedict Cumberbatch's performance as Assange is fine on a superficial level, but lacks depth and humour.

Copyright © 16.3.2015 Fredrik Gunerius Fevang

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