8/10
A Good Defense of Assange, Though Inevitably Political
18 November 2013
A documentary that details the creation of Julian Assange's controversial website, which facilitated the largest security breach in United States history.

How do you make a documentary on Assange without being political? Even if you try to be neutral, you will inevitably be able to lump interview into two groups: his supporters and his detractors. And he has plenty of both.

For supporters, you can rally around the "Collateral Murder" video and how it shows war in its unvarnished form. Whether or not this video showed a crime or a mistake, it makes us aware of what war is -- something that most of us today will never experience.

Detractors can appreciate how this film not only focuses on Assange's hacking (which is good or bad depending on who you are), but also shows how he is something of a sketchy person, abandoning his children and allegedly assaulting women. And then, he may even have been using Wikileaks funds to pay for his assault defense, which would be wrong.

The documentary also looks closer at Bradley (or Chelsea) Manning than any other source thus far. The e-mails, the access he had and his personal problems. I learned relatively little about Wikileaks from this film, but a good deal on Manning. And for that, I would highly recommend it.
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