Thighs Wide Shut

The Fifth Estate 
Julian Fried
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
R | 128 min

When I first saw the above photo of Benedict Cumberbatch as Julian Assange, I was like – woah! it’s Benedict Cumberbatch as Julian Assange!!!  Then I was like, woah, he looks so weird.  And then I was like, woah, Daniel Brühl with a cool beard!  I don’t know who DB’s playing, but he’s such an amazing actor, and to have him in a movie with Cumbersnatch is gonna be like even more woaaaah!!

And so, what of Cumberbatch as Assange, with Brühl (as co-WikiLeaker Daniel Domscheit-Berg, whose book the film is mostly based on) by his side, in movie form?  The Fifth Estate – a marginally convoluted, but never dull take on the rise of WikiLeaks and the faltering of Assange, directed by the guy with the odd resume consisting of everything from the goody Gods & Monsters and Kinsey to the annoying Dreamgirls and last two breaking yawn-y Twilight pics - Bill Condon

Wait, wasn’t there a documentary about WikiLeaks released earlier this year?  Why bother with a movie, when there’s a doc, right?  We gave Alex Gibney‘s lengthy doc - We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks – a spin this past week, thinking it would run info-tainmental laps around the fictionalized version of the same topic, but did not find that to be true.  The film, the doc and the actuality of WikiLeaks all have the same issue – there’s juss too much information at hand and it’s really hard to figure out how to process it, and how it should be presented.  Condon’s fictionalized take may streamline and skimp on the details, but it gives a good enuff look at the pressures involved, in pretty dramatic form.  On the otherhand, Gibney’s doc delves too deep into the material, and feels bloated.  You walk away wanting to plug the leak.  Condon’s flick makes you want to take a leak.  Whatever that means

But for reals, Estate is worth your eyes and ears cause Cumberbatch plays Assange.  The movie could have been about Assange taking a leak for 2 hours, but if Cumberbatch was the one doing the urinating the whole time, it would still be beyond watchable.  And then there’s Brühl.  Dude is so good that we’d watch him take a leak for 19 hours straight.  These are truths, and we just self-leaked them 

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

take the Fifth today at a theater near jews

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…