The Fifth Estate (2013)

One of the worst movies I've ever seen

Awesome Movie

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

.Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

WOW! Berg guy is totally self righteous a hole. You don't even have to know anything about the subject matter and you know this movie is totally BOGUS! A complete smear campaign on the founder of Wikileaks. "People love the true WikiLeaks story: a small group of dedicated journalists and tech activists who take on corruption and state criminality against the odds," Assange writes in his statement. "But this film isn't about that. ... Instead of the exciting true story, we get a film about a bland German IT worker who wasn't even there and a fabricated fight over redactions with the old newspapers and the State Department saving the day. The result is a geriatric snoozefest that only the US government could love." "As justification it will claim to be fiction, but it is not fiction. It is distorted truth about living people doing battle with titanic opponents. It is a work of political opportunism, influence, revenge and, above all, cowardice."

I began this movie, with high expectations, expecting a thought provoking drama with good acting and dialogue. I find the story for the WikiLeaks owners life to be quite interesting, and when I found out there was a movie about that, I grinned in excitement. The owner for WikiLeaks had an interesting life, and could actually be made into a masterpiece of a movie, if the director does not mess up. I was hoping the director for this movie would not mess up. I was telling myself, "Come on, it is a movie about WikiLeaks! It'll be great!"I was gravely wrong.One of the things I hate in some movies is the infamous shaky camera and quick cut clichè. It drives me nuts, because I am not able to focus on what is going on in the scene. But sometimes, the shaky camera and quick cuts, if not used excessively, can be used quite well.Almost every shot in the first half of this movie used quick cuts and shaky camera poorly.I told myself, "Come on, keep watching the movie. It will get better!"It did, sure. But that isn't saying much.Also, there was a try-hard "emotional" scene near the start of the movie, where we get a brief glimpse into the owner of WikiLeaks's childhood. The scene felt very forced, and soon enough I think the wall was bashing his head on mine because of how painfully awfully forced that scene was. That scene could of been sad, if there was a build up to it, instead of some shaky quick cut shots of technology.This also tried to act stylized. You know, like how Wes Anderson and Stanley Kubrick have their style. But, the thing with their styles, is that they are not forced. The style in this movie was forced. Forced with a capital F."Your cows seem a little depressed."Thats a line from this movie. There is more intelligent dialogue like that in the movie, don't worry.I don't know. Maybe if you are a huge fan of Benedict Cumberbatch speaking in a Australian accent, you'll enjoy this. If you are not, I suggest you don't watch it. If you have an IQ of nine, you may say "Shut up! I will decide if I like this movie myself!"Okay, decide if you want. But I am warning you.5.6/10.

This film tells the story of the founder of Wikileaks, and the core volunteers work in building a secure platform to help whistle blowers to expose injustice."The Fifth Estate" starts off very impressive, with a collage of news and ways to deliver news in the last hundred years. It is like a journey through time, and it even looks very cool. Unfortunately, things go downhill after that, and the plot becomes plain. It lacks the captivation and dramatic buildup to keep suspense. Only the very last part of the film, when the biggest ever leak is happening, is thrilling. By then, I have already formed an opinion of the film.It is marketed as a thriller, but I think it's more appropriate to say it's a biographical film because most of the screen time concentrates on the relationship of Julian and Daniel.

"THE FIFTH ESTATE" (2103) IS WONDERFUL! 10 STARS FOR THIS GENIUS MOVIE! HERE'S WHY......! ------------This movie is good for two reasons....It depicts unusual people working as computer experts using their skills for political and social purposes, and also it shows the strange and exotic world and lifestyle these computer expert revolutionaries live in....mostly a world of night, fog, and "film noir" personality. Both of these are worth learning more about.A 2013 feature length documentary titled WE STEAL SECRETS was made about the same subject area covered by THE FIFTH ESTATE (2013), and that documentary is a good companion video to screen back to back along with THE FIFTH ESTATE. Actual persons part of the story covered are shown and some are interviewed in WE STEAL SECRETS, and parts of the overall complicated story are covered not covered in THE FIFTH ESTATE, but useful in understanding the larger, complex story. Both movies are worth seeing. This movie was made to be watched AT HOME while the viewer sits alone on a comfortable couch, paying attention to the many important details of the movie and enjoying it's brilliant cinematic presentation, including it's good direction and screenplay, along with the actor work so widely praised, deservedly.It is a movie made by genius filmmakers about genius characters (I pass no judgment here on whether the genius depicted is used for good or evil.....the characters portrayed are clearly possessed of genius worth studying...and enjoying!).First, it depicts the strange and exciting night time, film-noir (in color, since it was made in 2013) world of computer hacker criminals who are do-gooder, revolutionary types always praised by poets, always written about by novelists, and ALWAYS subjects of thriller movies made by Hollywood studios which want to make profitable pictures. Our lives in present days (2015) are influenced by computers, the Internet, and the World Wide Web and its many websites, including "news leak/ whistle blower" websites like WikiLeaks.Com and OpenLeaks.Com.Political and criminal revolutionaries of the present and future will do their work using computers, hacking, and the Internet, and most people have no idea what this is all about, no expertise or understanding of what it takes to use computers, hacking, the Internet to impact the world.THE FIFTH ESTATE (2013) shows what that world is like (mostly a night-time world where "the action" takes place indoors while perpetrators face computer screens which cast eerie blue/green upward lights onto the faces of the down looking hero/villain computer users.)Normal people, average people never see this world....but they CAN if they watch this movie. A good two hour education in what the world of computer geeks/ revolutionaries looks like. Worth the price of the video for that alone.In addition, we see a portrait of a driven, genius (for good or ill...I pass no judgment about that here, I repeat) computer expert who is also a politician, excellent communicator, and intellectual to an advanced level.....well read, well experienced at dealing with a broad variety of important people from the top to the bottom of society (all societies).The Julian Assange character portrayed in this movie is the result of 60's/70's era counter-culture hippie types.....a second generation hippie/revolutionary, but with up to date skills and ambitions.Similar, if you will, to the TERMINATOR TWO hero child (aged 12 in the TERMINATOR movie) played by Edward Furlong.This movie cannot be understood (or enjoyed) unless the viewer does his/her homework FIRST. Read the Wikipedia biog profile article about Julian Assange, and the Wikipedia article about WIKILEAKS first (read it away from the computer so you can think about it, go back to it later....print out goes to 62 pages if you enlarge the typeface so it's easy to read. Worth the money spent in paper and computer ink!).The population of the world is now 7 billion people (it was 2 billion plus as recently as World War II years....70 years ago). That is incredible.The world is now (predictably and logically) CROWDED. Nobody has privacy in crowds. Good things have happened due to the population increase and changes to accommodate it, but privacy has gone and will keep going.Privacy of the sort people commonly experienced in the past and expected is simply no longer possible, and people better get used to that.This movie is all about privacy, and the fact it is disappearing (I pass no judgment on whether this is a good or a bad thing).The world is now filled with many more smart, educated people than ever lived on the world before (just as it filled with more rich people than ever before, more doctors, more plumbers, etc. etc.......seven billion people worldwide means more of every category of people).This movie is FOR smart educated people (who must do their homework before seeing the movie, and know how due to their advanced formal education), and ABOUT smart educated people (who run everything in the present day world, and are the only ones who can). The heroes, the villains, the cops, the robbers, the government types, the revolutionary types are ALL smart, educated people.The movie is filled with the faces of intelligent people saying intelligent things (and making references nobody who fails to do advanced research about the subject and people depicted in the movie will or can understand).Do your homework FIRST, before seeing the movie.Bad reviews this movie got were not written by people who did their homework first. Ignore those reviews! This is a 10 star movie for sure.