i was expecting something like the insider (1999) or state of play (2009). it could have been that - at the hands of better scriptwriters and directors who understand the pace of investigative journalism.
but not this one.
instead of focusing on wikileaks' revolutionary achievements (the afghanistan & iraq war logs, cable-gate), the movie chose to nitpick the odd personality of julian assange and how combative, if not monomaniac obsession on controlling wikileaks on his own. he finds the reasonable voice of close associate daniel berg too conservative for a whistleblowing organization - and the story thereafter aligns itself on how bad assange's PR skills - that at times i feel like watching a movie hell bent on character assassination. so the guy dyed his hair white because of his cult childhood - how does that impact the evolution of wikileaks is hardly relevant. another thing that i find unsatisfactory is how flat it feels, as if there is no suspense as the united state's government secrets were about to be revealed.
big deal.
i feel benedict cumberbatch is a miscast. his accent was a weird mixture of british, australian and somewhat midwestern too. perhaps due to no fault of his own (blame the bad script) - his portrayal of assange is one dimensional as the geek with a bad childhood and won't settle for anything less than revenge.
and that still doesn't explain the evolution of wikileaks. i think this could be one heck of a story in the hands or micheal mann or david fincher.
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