Alex Gibney is done with uncovering truths (for now) - his attention has shifted to another individual with a similar passion for exposing secrets of the powerful organisations which run and rule the Earth. Alas, We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks is more meandering biography than controversial expose, and there are few threads to be connected up here, as these are stories not only in broad awareness already, but recently so, and Gibney is too faithful to his wealth of admittedly absorbing material to realise that his film is overlong. It's clear where his sympathies lie, but I tend to place an ample amount of trust in an objective documentarian who has observed his subjects and examined his story for so long, so I don't mind that he makes such obvious arguments for certain figures and institutions - specifically, Bradley Manning, and WikiLeaks itself. As 'The Story of WikiLeaks', We Steal Secrets is divided into two chapters, interspersed: that of Julian Assange, and that of everything else. The former is the more substantial, by far. The trouble with this is the fact that it is the other chapter which is the more interesting and the more involving, in particular those sections focused on Manning, whose personal story has a much more profound impact than Assange's, and achieves this without any significant footage of its subject. Assange's story astutely paints him as a complex man indeed, one whose personal flaws have (directly and/or indirectly) landed him in serious bother, and his organisation. It seems that his ego has laid ruin to his ideals, and to WikiLeaks, which even its own members appear unable to fathom without him at the wheel. In me, at least, it raised a thought: would any of us, in such a remarkable position, be capable of suppressing our individual faults and desires, of putting our cause ahead of ourselves even when we question whether or not it truly is our cause? Or are we all, like Assange, just looking out for No. 1?
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