Assange, by the end of the film, is the butt of open ridicule. Bill Keller, when he was executive editor of The New York Times, published material from WikiLeaks documents and then trashed Assange, calling him in a 2011 article "elusive, manipulative and volatile" as well as "arrogant, thin-skinned, conspiratorial and oddly credulous." In the Gibney film, Keller adds to his condemnation of Assange by saying: "He looked like a bag lady coming in. Sort of like a dingy, khaki sports coat, old tennis shoes, with socks that were kind of collapsing around his ankles and he clearly hadn't bathed in several days."
Keller was one of the most ardent cheerleaders for the war in Iraq.
Two of Gibney's previous films, "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room" and "Taxi to the Dark Side," were masterful explorations into the black heart of empire. This time, Gibney was commissioned by Universal Studios -- owned by Comcast -- and paid to make a motion picture on WikiLeaks. He gave his corporate investors what they wanted.
WikiLeaks has published a line-by-line critique of the film's transcript here.
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