The Fifth Estate (2013)
Average Rating: 5.7/10
Reviews Counted: 45
Fresh: 21 | Rotten: 24
No consensus yet.
Average Rating: 5.9/10
Critic Reviews: 6
Fresh: 2 | Rotten: 4
No consensus yet.
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User Ratings: 8,168
Movie Info
Triggering our age of high-stakes secrecy, explosive news leaks and the trafficking of classified information, WikiLeaks forever changed the game. Now, in a dramatic thriller based on real events, "The Fifth Estate" reveals the quest to expose the deceptions and corruptions of power that turned an Internet upstart into the 21st century's most fiercely debated organization. The story begins as WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange (Benedict Cumberbatch) and his colleague Daniel Domscheit-Berg (Daniel
Oct 18, 2013 Wide
Walt Disney Pictures
- Official Site
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The Fifth Estate Trailer & Photos
All Critics (45) | Top Critics (6) | Fresh (21) | Rotten (24)
It offers a compelling, complex portrait of the Wikileaks founder that will probably do precisely what the actual Assange fears - namely, paint him as a demagogue whose commitment to institutional corruption is more self-aggrandizing than sincere.
Top CriticThe Fifth Estate doesn't have the same sharp focus or insight [as The Social Network]. It's adequate and often fun, but no match for Cumberbatch's talents.
Feverishly edgy and exciting.
For a film that reminds use over and over that this is a whole new world, this movie feels awfully familiar.
Both the kindest and most damning thing you can say about "The Fifth Estate" is that it primarily hobbles itself by trying to cram in more context-needy material than any single drama should have to bear.
Benedict Cumberbatch's Julian Assange is the highlight of a sometimes ordinary-feeling film.
Bracing, but as ambivalent about Julian Assange as the rest of society has become.
You owe it to yourself to see the movie if only to see what a Hollywood hatchet job looks like.
Might be interesting if it had enough passion and guts to take a stand, but ends up in the mushy middle of the road, which surely sprang from a desire to be 'fair' and 'balanced.'
In the end we're left with an enjoyable but rather empty ride; easy on the eye, kinetic in construction, but undone by indecision about its still unfolding history.
The Fifth Estate is interesting enough to generate the very talking points it seeks to provoke. In short: mission accomplished.
Chaotic and speculative, it haphazardly reveals the state of 21st century internet journalism which, seemingly, lacks any semblance of accountability.
This may be the greatest failing of The Fifth Estate: It takes place in a world of dirty (non-)secrets our tax dollars pay for and sells it back to us as low-grade Soap Opera.
Some critics will be taken in by The Fifth Estate's trendy visuals and empty insights, but moviegoers will quickly recognize this as trumped-up Hollywood hokum.
Like WikiLeaks itself, The Fifth Estate collapses under the sheer weight of information and political import bearing down upon it, its human drama crushed by documentary data overload.
No whistles were blown during the making of this movie: what a shame.
The Fifth Estate takes heed of too many narrative masters and ends up serving none of them well.
Cumberbatch doesn't just look like Assange in this film, from the lank white hair to the narrow, suspicious eyes. He inhabits him.
If you want to know more about Wikileaks and today's information war the picture is an excellent starting point. As engaging human drama, however, it falls short.
There's no doubt that Benedict Cumberbatch does a very good job as the impassioned, imperious and mercurial Assange ...
In a true story far more incredible than fiction - the fate of democracy hangs on the whim and will of a young Antipodean whose powers of geeky conquest reformulate forever the word "technocrat".
An engaging and enjoyable retelling of the WikiLeaks story with an astonishing central performance from Benedict Cumberbatch ...
Condon strains to recreate the curdled friendship dynamic that powered The Social Network, David Fincher's Facebook creation story, but Assange is too cartoonish and Berg too bland for their relationship to grip.
Cumberbatch is handed his meatiest role yet and delivers ...
The film's fogeyish approach to technology probably wouldn't matter so much if it had grasped the bare bones of drama.
Audience Reviews for The Fifth Estate
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Foreign Titles
- Inside WikiLeaks - Die fünfte Gewalt (DE)
- The Fifth Estate (UK)
It is almost funny how long I put off actually writing a review for The Fifth Estate, the Bill Condon-directed film, which adapts two different books that focus on the news-leaking website WikiLeaks and its founder, Julian Assange. The delay is not because I had a lot to consider, after seeing the film. It is actually quite the opposite. The Fifth Estate left me feeling with almost nothing, as the film is all over the place in presentation, one-sided in its overall viewpoint, and stands more as a shell containing a great performance from stars Benedict Cumberbatch and Daniel Bruhl, which would break apart quite easily without them. It is unfortunate, as I believe there could have been a way to make this story more interesting, especially given the talent involved.
read the whole review at thecodeiszeek.com