The Fifth Estate (2013)

Working on the “Twilight” films must have sent director Bill Condon to an eternal junior high hell of filmdom because his new drama “The Fifth Estate” –- about Julian Assange -– plays to the lowest IQ who will walk into a cinema, expecting history retold. This is history for people who don’t read. We all know of Assange and his WikiLeaks website and the mass files he unleashed, gutting U.S. bravado with footage of an army helicopter crew mowing down innocents, and dumping State Department files on U.S. spy infrastructure. Condon assumes we don’t and goes for obvious at every turn. When an Assange protégé (Daniel Brühl) dumps WikiLeaks’ main server, we flash to the man smashing up make-believe desks and computers, setting fire to all around him. Just in case anyone fails to grasp “delete.” I was done before the end, tired of drivel talk such as “He’s bigger than the New York Times!,” but Condon has more. Benedict Cumberbatch -– smartly cast and a shade creepy as Assange -- breaks the screen wall, stares out, and tells us to get angry and find the truth, and I was glad to get up. And go out the door. C