Kill the Messenger

In 1996 Gary Webb (Jeremy Renner) was a reporter covering the drug trade for mid-level US newspaper the San-Jose Mercury News when he was approached by a drug dealer’s wife with some explosive information: the government had mistakenly released to her (as part of her husband’s trial) documents proving that a major drug importer had been working with the CIA.
Lifting the lid on a conspiracy that involved CIA-backed Central American rebels raising money to fight their war by smuggling drugs into the US – helping to create the crack epidemic in L.A .in the ’80s and ’90s – made Webb a star. It also made him a target, with the CIA threatening him directly and rival (and much bigger) newspapers taking apart his story piece by piece.
As conspiracy thrillers go, this one (based on a true story) has an odd structure: uncovering the story (complete with a trip into a Central American hell prison to confer with a cartel boss, played by Andy Garcia) is clearly the first act, the blowback from that (cue lots of furrowed brows in board meetings and sinister figures in car parks) is act two, and then… there’s no act three.
Webb did the right thing and his career (and more) was crippled by it; it’s a real-life story, but that doesn’t make it all that satisfying a conclusion. The big plus here is Renner, who seems to have loosened up a lot since his Bourne Legacy days. He plays Webb as a confident charmer who’s not quite as worried as he should be about the impact of his actions.
The crusading journalist is a bit of a cliché, but here at least Renner makes him into someone we can believe in – and someone we can believe may just have cut a corner or two somewhere along the way.