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 Part
of the problem with creating movies about this age of the internet is
that the actual physical act of sitting and typing on a keyboard isn’t
very exciting to film. By focusing on the reason the protagonists are
interacting online, most filmmakers work around this, hence bringing
drama and hopefully an entertaining viewing experience. In The Fifth
Estate, we are shown lengthy scenes of the two main characters sitting
laptop to laptop, literally less than two feet away, but furiously
typing to each other in a chat room without speaking. The rest of the
film is equally scintillating.
The
computer nerd is special breed that deeply understands the internet is
increasingly the globe’s primary means of communication, information and
commerce; a fact which subsequently gives rise to those who are able
disturb it for their own gains or simply for giggly power trips. It’s
folks like these who gather on occasion to celebrate their nerdiness and
what makes them so much smarter than other, less internet-disposed
folks. One such geek is Daniel Domscheit-Berg, so keyed into computer
culture that he knows many hackers by their real names, which is how he
meets Julian Assange, a ghostly pale figure, strangely anti-social, who
fairly burns with a self-righteousness that appeals to Daniel’s sense of
middle-class malcontent. Assange’s screeds about justice and government
transparency and fairness around the globe draws Daniel and several more
followers and soon Assange’s whistleblower site, WikiLeaks has an actual
(unpaid) staff. The premise of the site is that insiders who
report on corruption can do so with perfect anonymity, while Assange
sends one of his skeleton crew - Daniel- to verify the details as best
they can (seemingly without concern that none of them seem to have
experience or legal education to ensure proper diligence). As the
site grows, the attention from the claims made fuels Assange and his
merry code-makers, partly driven by injustices ignored by the major
media that his site forces the public to address and partly that this is
his baby, controlled by his hand heedless of anyone’s opinion, including
Daniel’s. Assange knows something of the risks he’s taking, but only
grows bolder as the stakes go higher and more sensitive information
comes to WikiLeaks. When thousands of files of classified information
about United States diplomatic efforts and the Afghanistan War is
supplied to him by a US military serviceman, Assange knows it’s
something he can’t handle alone. He is still mistrustful of the printed
press and reluctant to share with the UK newspaper who will assist in
deciphering all the information and then print it for their piece of the
glory. Assange takes neither the newsmen’s advice nor the warnings of
his crew to redact the names of various US informants and active
personnel who depend on the secrecy of their covers to survive.
Clinging to his immutable stance that nothing presented on WikiLeaks
will ever be edited, Assange risks lives, precarious global negotiations
and active war operations, and the United States government that earlier
dismissed the site as a serious threat now must scramble to save their
people suddenly put at risk. Assange goes on the run from those who
would have him arrested as a traitor, but not without igniting a
worldwide debate about transparency amongst governments and the role of
journalism when it comes to maintaining that transparency.
Based
on the memoirs of Daniel Domscheit-Berg, what could have been a pretty
sharp David and Goliath story about the place of a small voice of
dissent in a big sea of journalistic nodding heads has all the life
boiled out of it. Where more could have been made of the effects that
WikiLeaks had with regard to opening the media’s eyes to international
injustices, the primary focus is placed on character interaction and it
just isn’t that interesting. Daniel is portrayed as Assange’s fanboy,
getting wound up in the excitement and ego of believing that he’s making
a difference, but it comes off as nothing more than some visceral
thrill, like, “Look how many hits we got!” We are given a completely
throwaway romantic subplot for Daniel in which he is predictably forced
to choose between his girlfriend and the lure of Assange’s newsmaking.
Whether due to the hollowness of the script or the thinness of the
character, Daniel Brühl plays Domscheit-Berg completely one-note; a
hyperactive chipmunk, with no highs or lows even when Assange insults
his parents or invades what was supposed to be a nice night in with the
GF. Even the big meltdown between Daniel and Assange over the former’s
resistance to publishing the dangerous cables carries no sparks.
Normally a bright spot in any production, Laura Linney (resembling
Hillary Clinton’s little sister) and Stanley Tucci (resembling
Stanley Tucci) appear as CIA agents whose sensitive and secret
operations are directly affected by the WikiLeaks exposure. We are
given a strange sub-subplot hinting at Linney’s possible romantic
involvement with a Libyan contactor endangered by Assange’s actions, but
the film’s failure to go through with the harsh consequences the
operative would have faced under Kaddafi’s government, only shows the
script’s refusal to court real controversy. Elsewhere in the film,
Anthony Mackie’s eyebrows do all the acting as a worried Obama advisor
let down by the CIA’s lack of Assange intercept, and Dan Stevens from
Downton Abbey is quite fetching as brunet reporter from the UK Guardian
Director Bill Condon clearly tried to go the Danny Boyle route with
loads of loud, irritating German techno blasting through way too many
scenes, lots of quick-cut editing and hand-held cameras to feign a
feeling of kinetic electricity. Problem with that is you have no
kinetics if what the people are mostly doing is sitting still. Not even
silly tricks like superimposing text over the screen or giving us some
kind of inner world montage is going to elevate this flat script, nor
will the wobbling from right to left done by the filmmakers who
desperately try to not to offend Assange’s critics or supporters.
So all
we’re really left to celebrate is that amazing Benedict Cumberbatch
feller playing Julian Assange. Cumberbatch (Cornering the box office
in his second film this week -
See
our 12 Years a Slave review) unfortunately proves that
having all the talent in the world cannot drag up a swampy drudge of a
script. In one of too many clumsily expositional lines, Assange claims
to have been tested for autism. Like many of these casually reeled-off
tidbits about the intriguing provocateur (including several
explanations for his trademark white locks), it’s brought up and
then dropped, but Cumberbatch’s portrayal of the newsmaker as a
flat-eyed, sharp-tongued narcissist, makes it one of the few conjectures
(of the many) that rings true. One wonders if Assange’s
determination to stick to WikiLeaks no edit policy when it’s plain
people will die is really born out of altruism, nihilism or the
inadvertent sociopathy of being unable to relate to anyone’s feelings or
situations but his own.
Flat,
boring, and the very antithesis of a thriller, the film lets its
audience down when the story of the birth, rise and global controversy
of WikiLeaks and its founder could have been a fascinating story. Even
Benedict Cumberbatch’s magnificent, show-stopping octopus dance - which
will surely be the rage at all the hottest clubs - cannot breathe any
life into The Fifth Estate.
~ The
Lady Miz Diva
Oct.
18th, 2013
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