Julian Assange: A Modern Day Hero? Inside the World of WikiLeaks | Documentary Review

by Roy S
(USA)

I had high hopes for this film. I mean, you've got international espionage and intrigue. You've got Luke fighting the forces of the Empire. You've got a story that almost everyone has an opinion about. You've got everything to make a great story. But the story falls short. About 30 minutes short.

Assange, Julian - A Modern Day Hero? Inside The World Of WikiLeaks is 90 minutes long and would have been much better if it was left at 60 minutes.

The final 30 minutes is one continuous, non-edited shot from a conference where Mr. Assange is speaking. It drags on forever. It seems as though the producers just gave up and let the camera roll at this conference as a way to make the film longer. I'm not sure what they were thinking.

Parts of it were good. It started out with video of Mr. Assange as he was "hiding" from authorities. I thought, "This is cool. The producers have some serious clout to get this kind of access." But it never felt like the story came together.

I'm not sure what I was suppose to feel as I was watching it and after it was over. It came across as a lot of facts, without any real story. Again, I wonder, did they make this film simply because they had access or did they get access to make the film. This documentary came across as a film that was made simply because someone had access. Believing that as I do, I can't help but wonder if sources within WikiLeaks produced this video.

I'm a fan of what WikiLeaks does. Too much information in the Information Age is kept locked away. Knowledge is power and all that.

I also don't like giving negative reviews to documentaries because I know how much work goes into them and the rewards are often negligible. Maybe my high expectations given the subject matter played at part as well. In the end, I did not find this to be a story that I will remember.

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