The film revolves around real events revealing the quest to expose the deception and corruption of power. Perhaps it will be controversial when he tells of a film about the power that has transformed the Internet into the 21st century, the most dangerous organization in the world.
The Fifth Estate is also as current as a news feed, filling in the disputed facts about Assange's life beyond the headlines and chronicling the revolution that has upended the media landscape in the last decade.
The material covered in the production's 128 minutes is not only inherently non-cinematic but not remotely "thrilling," at least in the conventional sense.
The film never seems to know what it wants to be, or where it is going with all of these gimmicks, gadgets and subplots. It ends up as a yawner, a thriller with no thrills, history without context.
Director Bill Condon delivers an intelligent, dynamic, character-centered drama.
Christian Science Monitor
October 18, 2013
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.