Kill The Messenger – Movie Review

Kill the Messenger – R
Release Date: Thu 09 Oct 2014

Jeremy Renner carries this political thriller telling the true story of journalist Gary Webb uncovering a massive conspiracy. It turns out that the Reagan administration wanted to keep soviet governments from forming in Central and South America but rather than going through congress set up a deal where the CIA conspired with the drug cartels and the contra forces to ship cocaine into the USA and turn the profits into guns and support for anti-communist fighters.

When Webb publishes the story he is systematically made controversial. The government undermines him making his journalism colleagues and even his own editors question the truth of his story.

I expected the movie to be about uncovering the conspiracy and that the revelation of the truth would be the climax. That is not the case here. Instead, the movie uses the revelation as a setup to tell a very allegorical story about how someone can be made irrelevant via character assassination. The supporting cast are well suited to their roles, which end up being less integral than I expected from the trailers. For example, I expected Michael Kenneth Williams, Andy Garcia and Oliver Platt to have more screen time.

Highly recommended for fans of political thrillers or those interested in a real-life conspiracy that has not gotten a lot of public attention.

John M. and I saw it in the theater and had a discussion afterward in the car: