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Jason versus The Fifth Estate

What!?! A talky drama about journalism reviewed on a site dedicated to B-grade horror and action movies? Sacrilege!

Hey, these things happen . . .

The Fifth Estate is a dramatic thriller based on real events that 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 -- WikiLeaks.

It took some time to get used to The Fifth Estate, primarily because my movie diet the last four and a half years has primarily been B-movies full of beasts, boobs and blood. There's very little of the Three Bs in this flick, unless you count David Thewlis as a beast.

There's a lot of talking and typing in The Fifth Estate, but director Bill Condon keeps it interesting for most of the two-hour run time. It doesn't hurt that I'm a journalist, and a lot of what goes on in The Fifth Estate actually happened. WikiLeaks had a huge impact on journalism, the Internet and the world, so the story is a fascinating one. Surprisingly, I didn't know the half of it.

Benedict Cumberbatch is just awesome as always, and I enjoyed Daniel Bruhl's performance too. Acting carries a movie like this, and the film's success rests largely on these two men.

As much as I dug The Fifth Estate, it's not a movie I'd seek out again. It's interesting, but not the kind of entertainment I'd plug into the DVD player on a regular basis. So it's a Bad in my books.
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