famefut A fascinating documentary that sheds a revealing light on the largest whistleblowing scandal of recent times, its repercussions and the moral dilemma involved, even though Gibney also has a bit of trouble editing all this material together in a cohesive way. Watch it. Best WikiLeaks doc out there.

ufster ufster In what can only be accurately described as a political hit piece disguised as a documentary, we are asked by the director, Alex Gibney, to stop looking at the broader effects of the accomplishments of Wikileaks organization and its founder Julian Assange and focus on the minute and the irrelevant, the speculative and the unsubstantiated.The expected (not-so) subtle audio visual tricks employed by such shysters of Gibney's caliber could have been overlooked if it not were the mere fact that this so-called documentary, while asking us to change our mind, does so without providing a shred of concrete evidence supporting its implicit or explicit claims. It has going for it snippets of opinions from disgruntled former employees who are ironically too happy to play the role of the conscientious objector while harping on about noble cause corruption, with a straight face to my amusement; establishment journalists that are trying to distance themselves from Wikileaks now that a (half) black democrat has been elected president for two terms and the memories of the Bush years seems so far to imagine maybe U.S. imperialist interests are no longer the driving force behind the foreign policy of the nation.After all, we, the westerners are always the good guys, we're just misguided and we make mistakes but ultimately our hearts are always in the right place even though we may end up causing more death and destruction than the rest of the world combined. It's only reasonable that such morally upright people will be concerned with the "blood on the hands" of the founder of Wikileaks, dare I say, hypocritically more than the blood on the hands of the people they support with their tax dollars, they vote into office and they make excuses for. It asks rhetorical questions in futile hopes of appearing as objective which are only to be followed soon by the answers given to us in neatly packaged snippets from critics of Assange and Wikileaks.All of this effort, to cast a shadow of doubt as to the intentions of the founder of Wikileaks, Assange, hoping guilt by association will work its way through to discredit the organization and taint the information they have provided the public. The trick to planting the seed of doubt is isolation: through feeding the fragile egos of the individuals comprising western peoples and convincing them to believe in the lie that they are only concerned with the well-being of the people possibly effected by the leaks and ethics of how Wikileaks conducts their business. It's as ludicrous and transparent as it would be if some oil corporation executive accused the young protesters of harming the environment by chaining themselves to the trees that they intend to cut for the planned pipeline.It's also most generous in giving you the gracious way to exit the "insert political group to be presented as a cult". All you have to do in return for this gracious gesture is to give these people the benefit of the doubt every time they make a speculative and unsubstantiated claim with regards to the motives and actions of that group. You see, they understand that you're a good guy, just like them but only misguided by hateful anti-American, anti-freedom rhetoric of the "radical left". You too can be a respected member of the "good guy public" by doing so and you will also have the clear conscience of mind believing you were only motivated by your moral compass.Pathetic, predictably so but pathetic none the less.

magnusman60 Iam all for protecting the people but there a point when things go to far and we gone way beyond that.The NSA no just tracking terrorists its coping everything with out regard for warrants or what the rights of the people are.They are spying on their own allies and lying to the public.Then they go after the people for breaking the law by exposing them and totally disregard the fact they broke the laws in the first place.There a old saying when the constitution was written up.The people should not fear the government but the government should fear the people.By their very actions they creating the governments that these terrorists fear so much.These guys aren't all saints by any stretch by they have shown that we need to take back control and make the governments responsible to the people once again.

Camoo I am not shocked by the amount of really dismal reviews this film has gotten from users on IMDb considering the passionate following the Assange has maintained. But people don't give Alex Gibney enough credit. I think the director has built a reputation as a fair, objective critic of power, and his filmography ('Taxi to the Dark Side, Smartest Guys in the Room') has shown that. I believe Julian Assange built a personality cult around him, and many of his followers are either unwilling or unable to see the complexities of this saga, and would rather blindly follow this man into the abyss. What a strange and modern tragedy. The tragedy and irony of the story really is how such a great and noble idea as Wikileaks was corrupted by the same forces it railed against, and how the need for secrecy prevails. Excellent and compelling documentary.