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Review

A star rating of 4 out of 5.

Released at a time when WikiLeaks and its founder, Julian Assange, are still making the news, this film affords a fresh and fascinating insight into the internet phenomenon. Documentary specialist Alex Gibney (Taxi to the Dark Side, Mea Maxima Culpa) analyses the key events in the story - from the leak of classified information regarding the war in Afghanistan to the rape scandal that led Assange to seek refuge at the Ecuadorian embassy in London - and in the process creates a real-life spy thriller. The greatest intrigue is derived from a probing dissection of Assange, whose idealism and egotism are both laid bare in a complex, intimate portrait. Despite his refusal to be interviewed, the fly-on-the-wall footage means we do hear from the man and, more revealingly, see him basking in the limelight. Similarly, Gibney's use of chat-room transcripts creates a poignant and disturbing picture of soldier Bradley Manning, who was imprisoned for blowing the whistle on misconduct by the US military in Afghanistan. This isn't the whole story by any means, but it does fill in some of the gaps in the news coverage with startling impact.

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Credits

Cast

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Julian AssangeJulian Assange

Crew

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DirectorAlex Gibney

Details

Theatrical distributor
Universal
Released on
2013-07-12
Languages
English
Formats
Colour
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