Thoughts on Parkland and The Fifth Estate

It seems appropriate to critique the films Parkland and The Fifth Estate in tandem.  Both deal with events of momentous importance for the world, events which continue to shape history either through conspiracy theories in the case of the Kennedy assassination or through the ethics of the dissemination of sensitive information via unnamed sources through the website Wikileaks.
I must admit to approaching the film Parkland with a remarkable lack of enthusiasm due to its subject matter: the aftermath of the Kennedy assassination in Dallas on that fateful November 22nd, 1963.  To state that the topic of this assassination has been exhaustively studied, either through conventional channels or through more peculiar means via conspiracy theory books, websites and just plain nut jobs, would be an understatement.  At some point Kennedy fatigue is bound to set in.  My interest in the film was mostly sparked by the news that Tom Welling was going to have a feature role in its making.  I've been a fan of the actor since Smallville so this was exciting news.  Much to my chagrin he is featured very little as head of Kennedy's security detail.  In fact Parkland is one of those wanna be prestige projects with a lot of famous actors attached seemingly because they want to be a part of something profound and influential. In my estimation the film would have had the same resonance with no name actors which is to say a moderate resonance in terms of critical acclaim or the events which the film seeks to illuminate.
Apparently the film was a pet project of Tom Hanks who was determined to see it realized.  It's directed in an indifferent, competent fashion by Peter Landsman a director I know nothing about.
The film focuses on the critical hours following the shots heard around the world.  For such a momentous event the film is a rather dull affair. The barely alive President is rushed to the emergency room of the Parkland hospital with Jackie his wife pitifully cradling part of his brain in her hands in one of  the most affecting part of the whole movie.  Thereafter we witness the valiant efforts of the staff to try and save JFK and then a whisking of the corpse back to the Presidential plane (yeah Tom Welling) and off to Washington.  Most of the time is spent looking at the dying president with very grim faces,understandably so,yet the lack of passion in filming these pivotal scenes yields a certain ennui. I wanted to be engaged but I wasn't. The heavy use of archival footage renders the film inert as we witness the shots, without the benefit of sound, through the googly eyes of Abraham Zapruder played indifferently by Paul Giamatti.
The only part of the film which managed to capture my attention was the part concerning the brother of Lee Harvey Oswald ,their mother and Lee Havey's wife with the aftermaths of the shooting hanging over their heads and sure to do so for the rest of their lives. In conclusion the film was full of good intentions,historically accurate yet a lifeless recounting of an event which changed a nation and the world.  It felt incomplete as if most of it had been left on the cutting floor waiting vainly to be reanimated.

The Fifth Estate directed by Bill Condon and starting almost there mega star Benedict Cumberbatch in the role of Julian Assange, is also potentially full of good intentions but ends up feeling confused and a virtual character assassination of Assange himself which the film never fully assumes.  We meet the mysterious Assange through a hacker acquaintance of his the soon to be partner in "crime" and de facto second in command Daniel Berg.  Their relationship is a fractured affair.  Things go smoothly at first until Assange's thirst for truth and his disregard of the danger posed to his "anonymous" sources bring things to a head in particular with the leaks attached to private Bradley Manning which rocked the U.S. military establishment to its core.  The director tries very hard to make this a propulsive affair with
 endless jetting by Assange between capitals in Europe and Kenya where Wikileaks revelations will lead to the assassination of two Assange acolytes.  To signal its hip factor as befits a movie about a hip character ample use is also made of technology, cryptic messages, split screens, undecipherable references to hacker know how in short so much is piled on that it becomes a bit of a bore just sifting through all the garble.  The problem with a film tailored as a wannabe thriller resides in the fact that it lacks a credible villain.  Sure Assange is not an especially pleasant guy but we more or less already know this from interviews and portraits gleaned here and there in the conventional press.  The jury is still out on whether Assange is guilty of the rape charges brought against him which he has vehemently denied. Meanwhile he's still waiting,not very patiently I suspect, in exile in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London although that hasn't put an end to Wikileaks revelations to wit Edward Snowden being its most prominent whistle blower to date.
Cumberbatch is great in the role and Daniel Bruhl in the role of Everyman Berg is also excellent. The film is peppered with well known actors in minor roles, a trend it seems for another prestige project with high intellectual significance (cough). Assange remains an enigmatic problematic figure to the end.  With a more rigorous script placing greater emphasis on motive rather than subjecting us to great bouts of frenetic keyboarding the film might have gotten somewhere.  As it stands it's an unfinished mess with some need of serious editing.