Kill The Messenger starts and ends with real footage of drug smuggling stories. The start involves stories questioning the methods of day to day citizens within drug smuggling rings. The end involves footage of the higher powers taking all the blame for such crimes. It's a perfectly defined way to show who Gary Webb really was. He was a journalist who, above all, was determined to reveal the truth and what people needed to know. He didn't care about a paycheck or respect, he just wanted ordinary citizens to be aware of what was going on around them. Of course, it's not a spoiler to say that the film finds Webb finding that the higher powers are a substantial part of why drug smuggling rings are running rampant. The film poses an interesting question of how much information is truly being hidden from the general public. Needless to say, the higher ups didn't want this information getting to ordinary citizens. This puts Gary's boss (Oliver Platt) and editor (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) in a position where even they are forced to throw him under the bus. Kill The Messenger is also that rare film which works better when less is happening. The deeper and deeper Gary gets into this conspiracy, the less interesting the story truly is. This is not to say that everything he finds isn't interesting. On the contrary, every bit of information as well as the rabbit hole he sinks himself into is fascinating. It's just that the very present air of mystery before the reveal proves to be the most intense. It's like watching or reading And Then There Were None for the first time without knowing who the murderer is.
Webb is played in top form by Jeremy Renner, an actor who baffles me. He's an excellent actor but seems to pick roles such as The Bourne Legacy and Hansel And Gretel: Witch Hunters that don't let him show his considerable talents. Perhaps he has fun taking an easy role every now and then and films such as The Hurt Locker and The Town give him a justified "one for them, one for me" approach. Renner looks so much the part that when they showed footage of the older Gary Webb at the end, I thought they put makeup on Renner to make him look older. Renner's quick, witty way of telling it like it is works spectacularly for playing Gary Webb. This was not just a man who changed journalism inadvertently, this was a man who was not living if he was not changing journalism. The film is perfectly cast for everyone else as well. Director Michael Cuesta and screenwriter Peter Landesman (who takes the script from both Webb's book "Dark Alliance" and Nick Schou's book "Kill The Messenger") bring in people who obviously know what they're doing for what would be thankless, nothing roles by lesser actors. Great talents such as Michael Sheen, Ray Liotta, Barry Pepper, Paz Vega, Yul Vazquez, Robert Patrick, Andy Garcia, Michael Kenneth Williams and Tim Blake Nelson come in for brief scenes and make the best of what they have. Other extremely talented actors also have solid roles. These include Rosemarie DeWitt as Sue, Gary's supportive but massively skeptical wive and Lucas Hedges as Ian, Gary's supportive but massively skeptical oldest son.
The real strength of the film comes from Cuesta's direction, which makes use of both the quickly moving rabbit hole that Webb finds himself in, which is symbolized by shots of Webb riding his motorcycle and the slow burn that comes from being addicted to such information, such as when Liotta shows up briefly as a man who also got addicted to heaps of information he shouldn't have had. This is the kind of film that works as a conspiracy thriller equally as well as it works as a psychological "how far is too far" investigative drama. It's exciting to watch someone so passionate about exposing lies that affect people who are just trying to make an honest living. If you do not know the story and have not seen the film yet, I advise you to skip the next paragraph as I am going to integrate part of the conclusion into my review.
Nothing about the film shows Webb's passion for finding the truth and exposing it quite as much as a scene at the end in which Webb gives a big "screw you" to his boss, his editor and the world of journalism as it stands in general. After winning a National Journalists Award, Webb first imagines his view of what he has done compared to every other person in the room's view on his story. He imagines a huge standing ovation complete with a lot of "what to go, Gary" being told to him. Flash to the actual event and there are only a few people reluctantly clapping for him. Of the four people barely clapping for him, two of them are his wife and his older son. He then goes up to the podium where people look at him with the interest of a kid wanting dessert being handed a plate of broccoli. He then launches into a speech of how he thought, as a journalist, he was supposed to publish and uphold the true facts of what's going on in the world, whether good or bad, for everyone to see. Of course, this is after his editor and boss have thrown him under the bus and asked him to resign. He explains he does not want to work for any paper or news outlet that hides wrong doings of higher ups simply because they are higher ups. He then throws his signed resignation sheet at his boss and editor and walks away in complete silence. This is who Webb was---a man who cared more about giving the general public the information that needs to be said than just simply working as a journalist. Most journalists would be too scared to even utter a word about this story but Webb gave away the entire farm on the drug smuggling scandal.
While Kill The Messenger does lag in a few parts and perhaps could have reached its conclusion sooner, it is no doubt a worth seeing story about a man who changed what people brought to their papers. Renner is the driving force here, with a great cast backing him up to deliver a truly entertaining and fascinating film. This is both a fascinating study of just how scary exposure and investigative journalism can be and a solid mystery of just how much is being hidden from us day by day. Even as I sat here typing this review, there could potentially be hundreds, even thousands of dangerous and threatening stories being swept under the rug for fear off exposure. In that alone, this is a film well worth watching.
(4 and 1/2 out of 5 Stars, The film is rated R for language and drug content)
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