The Fifth Estate (2013)
Average Rating: 5.4/10
Reviews Counted: 154
Fresh: 59 | Rotten: 95
Heavy on detail and melodrama but missing the spark from its remarkable real-life inspiration, The Fifth Estate mostly serves as a middling showcase for Benedict Cumberbatch's remarkable talent.
Average Rating: 5.5/10
Critic Reviews: 41
Fresh: 12 | Rotten: 29
Heavy on detail and melodrama but missing the spark from its remarkable real-life inspiration, The Fifth Estate mostly serves as a middling showcase for Benedict Cumberbatch's remarkable talent.
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Average Rating: 3.2/5
User Ratings: 13,069
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
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All Critics (154) | Top Critics (41) | Fresh (59) | Rotten (95)
As nervy and as excitable as the trade that it depicts.
Top CriticThe material covered in the production's 128 minutes is not only inherently non-cinematic but not remotely "thrilling," at least in the conventional sense.
Director Bill Condon delivers an intelligent, dynamic, character-centered drama.
Condon and his screenwriter Josh Singer don't quite know what to make of this duo, perhaps because the men didn't quite know what to make of each other, either.
"The Fifth Estate" feels unfortunately small and safe.
A feeble, reactionary drama.
Cumberbatch, rocking white, stringy locks and some alien-like dance moves, does a fine 'SNL' impersonation. But he's sinister, not ambiguous - a loathsome hypocrite bound to inspire hit pieces like this.
Perfectly serviceable - if far from subtle, like reading a Wikipedia page on CAPS LOCK.
This might play the saga as a psychodrama with a bit of Bourne and even 'bromance' and yet, nevertheless, it works, and Cumberbatch is as close as you'll get to Assange without being arrested.
A Wikileaks story that fails to match the drama of its real-life inspiration.
A well-acted but uneven take on recent events that feels strangely superfluous.
Cumberbatch is fetching as Assange, and he manages to sound convincingly similar; he also captures the mannerisms. But more importantly, he conveys the deadpan egotism and edgy self promotion, coupled with a fervent belief in his own messianic status
It tries to pack in far too much material, but where The Fifth Estate is spectacularly successful is in leaving an impression of the character and duplicitous morals of WikiLeaks founder and self-hailed celebrity, Julian Assange
The Fifth Estate is Woodward VS Bernstein.
a profound disappointment when it could have been instead wonderfully profound
The movie runs out of gas but the news story has legs that won't quit.
The finale deflates the build up of the whole moral issue of leaking secret information when you realize this story of heroic truth-telling is also one about a man actually running away from his more debased crimes.
Tthe film finally falls short, an explosive beginning leading to a pedestrian end.
Confusing WikiLeaks docudrama mostly avoids iffy content.
The acting is good in this Julian Assange tale but the story is deadly dull for the most part.
A throwback to red scare movies of the 1950s with Julian Assange portrayed as the fanatical intellectual bent on destroying bourgeois society and the lives of those naive enough to follow him. Utter trash.
This portrait of the world's most notorious bean spiller reveals so little I couldn't say with more certainty today than a year ago whether his crusade for transparency is sincere or just a freedom of information act.
Flat, boring, the antithesis of a thriller, the fascinating story of WikiLeaks is a letdown. Even Benedict Cumberbatch's show-stopping octopus dance - which will surely be the rage at all the hottest clubs - can't breathe life into The Fifth Estate
Like the film's cold, bleak backdrops of Belgium and Germany, there's far too little warmth, wit or movie sunshine to penetrate the overarching sense of its own seriousness.
By-the-numbers biopic...Assange, the dramatic character, isn't nearly as interesting as the real Assange.
There's perhaps nothing more cringe-inducing than a square's view of a radical subculture.
Audience Reviews for The Fifth Estate
Super Reviewer
Super Reviewer
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
Super Reviewer
read the whole review at www.reviewsfromabed.com
Super Reviewer
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Foreign Titles
- Inside WikiLeaks - Die fünfte Gewalt (DE)
- The Fifth Estate (UK)
