The Fifth Estate stars Benedict Cumberbatch…and there are many people out there who only need to know that to become interested in the DreamWorks Pictures release. For the rest of you, The Fifth Estate is based on the Inside WikiLeaks and WikiLeaks books, and is directed by Bill Condon (The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 & 2, Dreamgirls).
The cast also includes Daniel Brühl, Anthony Mackie, David Thewlis, Alicia Vikander, Peter Capaldi, Carice van Houten, Dan Stevens, Stanley Tucci, and Laura Linney. DreamWorks will be launching the dramatic film in theaters on October 18, 2013.
The Plot:
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 (Benedict Cumberbatch) and his colleague Daniel Domscheit-Berg (Daniel Brühl) 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?”
