The film tells the story of American investigative journalist Gary Webb, whose controversial story 'Dark Alliance' caught the nation's attention and shook the CIA. It also discloses the consequences Webb had to bear for his pursuit of truth.
The movie starts like a documentary, with a montage of anti-drug sound bites from the 1980s, mixed with archival news footage of the war in Nicaragua. Director Michael Cuesta is perhaps best known for his work on TV series “Homeland” and “Six Feet Under,” and perhaps the worst one can say about his new feature, “Kill the Messenger,” is that it sometimes plays like a condensed version of a first-rate cable miniseries. Based on the life of investigative reporter Gary Webb, who sparked firestorms with his writing on links between the CIA, Nicaraguan Contras and the American crack-cocaine trade only to have his career destroyed in the media blowback, the film taps into far deeper, richer veins of material than it has the time to properly mine. It’s nonetheless a flinty, brainy, continually engrossing work that straddles the lines between biopic, political thriller and journalistic cautionary tale, driven by Jeremy Renner’s most complete performance since “The Hurt Locker.” Specialty box office should be healthy; post-screening debates and Google sessions should be fierce.
Renner plays Webb as a dashing, naturally impatient sort of everyman. (Imagine Robert Redford’s Bob Woodward as a beer-drinking, motorcycle-riding father of three who’s probably been to his fair share of Pearl Jam concerts.) Working for the San Jose Mercury News in the mid-1990s, Webb publishes a piece on seizures of suspected drug dealers’ property by the DEA, only to find a spate of messages from a flirtatious drug trafficker’s call girl ( Paz Vega play that role) waiting for him at his desk the next day.
Meeting up with her, Webb gets hold of a classified record on Danilo Blandon (Yul Vazquez), a former Nicaraguan trafficker with ties to the Contras, enlisted by the DEA to help bring down notorious kingpin “Freeway” Ricky Ross (Michael K. Williams). The document quickly leads Webb down a rabbit hole that sees him travel to Central America, Washington, D.C., South Central L.A. 's crack killing fields, and Ross’ prison cell. Webb receives hints that there might be repercussions for pursuing the story.
You should watch the struggle that he faced during receiving all the information. And when he posted the article "Dark alliance" on the internet. Its spread rapidly and was arguably one of the first viral news stories — Webb finds himself constantly being asked to defend allegations that he never actually made, his work attracting just as much misinterpretation as condemnation.
It was written by Peter Landesman. It is based on the book "Kill the messenger" by Nick Schou and the book "Dark Alliance" by Gary Webb, which focuses on CIA involvement in Contra cocaine trafficking. Apart from that Jeremy Renner manages to portray the emotional upheaval, passion and anxiety of the late Gary Webb brilliantly.
Most of the time journalists sacrifice many things for true, job, family and sometimes their own life. This movie give me a sense of difficulty faced by a journalist while investigating the truth. I think it's a nice movie everyone should watch.
