The Fifth Estate
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Metascore
51

Mixed or average reviews - based on 16 Critics What's this?

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  • Starring: , , , , , ,
  • Summary: 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 and his colleague Daniel Domscheit-Berg team up to become underground watchdogs of the privileged and powerful. On a shoestring, they create a platform that allows whistleblowers to anonymously leak covert data, shining a light on the dark recesses of government secrets and corporate crimes. Soon, they are breaking more hard news than the world’s most legendary media organizations combined. But when Assange and Berg gain access to the biggest trove of confidential intelligence documents in U.S. history, they battle each other and a defining question of our time: what are the costs of keeping secrets in a free society—and what are the costs of exposing them? [DreamWorks]… Expand

Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 3 out of 16
  2. Mixed: 12 out of 16
  3. Negative: 1 out of 16
  1. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Owen Gleiberman
    Oct 16, 2013
    83
    The Fifth Estate is flawed (it grips the brain but not the heart), yet it feverishly exposes the tenor of whistle-blowing in the brave new world, with the Internet as a billboard for anyone out to spill secrets. Call it the anti-social network.
  2. Movie Nation
    Reviewed by: Roger Moore
    Oct 15, 2013
    75
    The aloof, guarded Cumberbatch plays Assange as a mixture of brilliance, hucksterism, ego and naivete. He carries the baggage of an actor who plays “smart,” with a menacing edge.
  3. The Telegraph
    Reviewed by: Tim Robey
    Sep 15, 2013
    60
    Benedict Cumberbatch is inspiredly cast, serving up a technically ingenious performance which may be his juiciest ever.
  4. indieWIRE
    Reviewed by: Eric Kohn
    Sep 15, 2013
    50
    An uneven, intermittently thoughtful but largely preachy overview of WikiLeaks' rising influence that has less of an issue determining Assange's character than it does with telling a compelling story.
  5. The Hollywood Reporter
    Reviewed by: John DeFore
    Sep 15, 2013
    50
    The most compelling thing here by far is the film's vision of Assange, by all accounts a man of enormous self-regard and slippery ethics. Benedict Cumberbatch has the character in hand from the start.
  6. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: Alan Scherstuhl
    Oct 15, 2013
    40
    The issues at play here are fascinating, but Condon and Singer never let any argument about journalism or the philosophy of free information last longer than a couple ping-ponged lines between master (Assange) and student (Domscheit-Berg).
  7. Slant Magazine
    Reviewed by: R. Kurt Osenlund
    Oct 15, 2013
    38
    The film is guilty of some of the same quick judgment it clearly doesn't endorse, exploiting Julian Assange's unmistakable appearance to help give itself a boogeyman.

See all 16 Critic Reviews

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