Called by the film-makers a “dramatic thriller based on real events”, The Fifth Estate has all the components of a thriller – duelling protagonists, international locations, high stakes, secrecy, betrayal, pounding soundtrack – yet this account of the rise of WikiLeaks to international fame (or notoriety, depending on your point of view) is hardly the unredacted truth. Hard in fact, to think of a more redacted document than a film script. The plot centres on the events in 2010 that finally established WikiLeaks (and its presiding intelligence Julian Assange, played here by Benedict Cumberbatch) as inter­national publisher, enabler and evangelist for free access to state secrets. At that point, the small group of individuals acting under the WikiLeaks banner re