“Some stories are too true to tell,” admonishes a confidential source to investigative journalist Gary Webb (Jeremy Renner). The rebuke only hardens Webb’s resolve to keep digging into a story that will make (and ultimately destroy) his career. Reporting for the humble San Jose Mercury News, Webb uncovers that the CIA colluded with Nicaraguan drug smugglers in their efforts to aid that nation’s Contra rebels. Webb eventually pens a fastidiously documented exposé that traces the crack slung on Los Angeles streets back to the U.S.’s anti-Communist proxy war in Central America. While Reagan officials chanted “Just Say No,” their illegal conflict was being partly funded by a drug that devastated America, especially its poor, black citizens.
The praise that Webb initially receives for his muckraking quickly evaporates as other media outlets pick apart his work with a latecomers’ bitterness. Soon the reporter’s own editors anxiously walk back the story, while government agents threaten him both obliquely and overtly. Webb gradually begins to crack under the strain, growing paranoid that his career, family, and life are in jeopardy.
Directed by Michael Cuesta, Kill the Messenger is a sort-of-factual newsroom thriller in the mold of All the President’s Men and The Insider. (It even apes dialog from the latter.) Unfortunately, Cuesta and screenwriter Peter Landsman have difficulty structuring the story to best exploit its intrinsic drama, leaving Messenger feeling somewhat lumpy. Cinematically, the film evinces an bland visual style that mostly squanders the anamorphic widescreen format. However, Renner is generally in fine form, particularly in some unexpectedly moving scenes with Lucas Hedges as Webb’s eldest son. On the whole, Messenger’s value lies not in its formal qualities but in the light is directs on a dark, ugly corner of American history---and on the man who was destroyed for pointing to it.
Opens Friday, October 10 at the Landmark Plaza Frontenac Cinema (1701 S Lindbergh, 314-994-3733).
