So which is more important: truth or security? I’m glad we finally get to ask this question. When Fox News ran the country for most of the first decade of the 21st century, truth wasn’t more important than anything. But really, which would you rather have? I am a firm believer in transparent government. I care more that they tell me what they’re doing than why they’re doing it. And I’m among those naïve morons who have the nerve to be disappointed when a certain current President breaks a promise of transparent government.
Benedict Cumberbatch plays white-haired Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks, a website dedicated to exposing truth at any cost. Naturally, Julian made a fair number of enemies, especially with his stance to edit nothing. You see, the premise is that editing implies manipulation (hence the exact opposite of freedom of speech). As somebody who edits all of his own work, however, I’m suspicious that he’s just lazy. The failure of Wikileaks to edit, well, anything, is also the failure of Wikileaks. Available truth on any subject is cool … to a point. Should we really be privy to the home addresses of Parliament members? This is one of those fine lines. I personally think the American public deserves to know nearly everything about a war that costs American lives and American money. And yet I’d draw the line between atrocities and the public outing of spies.
The philosophical is all you’re gonna get here. We’re on location in a dozen different countries, and yet, not much happens in any one of them. Mostly, we see Julian wandering around in a weather-appropriate jacket making phone calls. Sure, he’s physically in Iceland, 
Kenya, Belgium, etc., but his head is in the network. Always. A laptop is opened at the beginning of every scene and closed to signal conclusion. The Fifth Estate is among the new breed of thrillers in which nobody has a gun, nobody chases anybody, nobody pursues anybody, the deadlines are arbitrary and people sit around typing things and acting nervous. There isn’t much thrilling going on, just the mild deterioration of Julian’s character. He begins as a pure idealist. As the film and his ego grows, he’s more like Jim Carrey’s Riddler –or the future Bond villain Benedict is destined to become- seeming to enjoy exposure as much as he seeks any truth or accountability. In the process, he alienates his only friend in the world, Daniel Berg (Daniel Brühl, fresh from racing against Chris Hemsworth all summer). Don’t make a coworker your only friend, btw. That’s bound for ugly even if you’re not exposing political atrocities.
You get the general impression in The Fifth Estate that the powers that be are generally embarrassed by the success of Wikileaks. The two-man operation conquers ten times the scoops of any major newspaper (with what money for research or travel? How can they afford any of this?). We live in the wake of the death of journalism and journalistic integrity. Headlines are no longer dictated by scandal and news, but by political agenda. I suppose we should be grateful that major newspapers and governments can be embarrassed by exposure. It’s easy to envision the scenario by which it will either no longer be possible or no longer matter.
I’m sorry I didn’t like The Fifth Estate more as Wikileaks pissed off so many awful conservative pundits. The thing that bothers me most is that nobody seemed to attack Wikileaks or Julian Assange on the basis of integrity. The main public backlash was all entirely about character assassination. It doesn’t really make any sense, does it? You want to discredit Wikileaks? Con them into printing a lie. They have a two-man research team. TWO MEN. You think those guys can fact-check everything on the site by themselves? You get them to print one lie asserted as truth and suddenly integrity is lost. The attack on character suggests only one thing – you don’t want the truth known. It’s really funny how we deal with truth, isn’t it? “You can’t handle the truth!” “No, YOU can’t handle the truth!” I would bet that any individual in a position of power would swear up and down that he/she would and could handle any truth, but somehow the public knowing is a bad thing. Spin is public manipulation, pure and simple. Welcome to modern news.
Secrets
Regrets
Exposure
Explosure
News
Blues
Reaction
Detraction
Cumberbatch
Geez, I dunno, “slumberpatch?” I was doing so well, too.
Rated R, 128 Minutes
D: Bill Condon
W: Josh Singer
Genre: Internet fun
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Idealists
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Embarrassed government, journalism officials
