Kill The Messenger 

Released October 9, 2014

Available on multiple streaming services

Directed by Michael Cuesta

Starring Jeremy Renner, Robert Patrick, Jena Sims

A gripping political/crime drama based on the true story of Garry Webb, a journalist for the San Jose Mercury Newsthat stumbles upon evidence that that the CIA was involved in trafficking cocaine to the US to support the Reagan-supported counterrevolutionaries in Nicaragua.

It’s an amazing story – shocking even to someone like me, who is willing to believe that our military and spy organizations are involved in all sorts of illegal and unethical activities all the time.

What’s even more stunning is the role the NYT, The Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times played in trying to discredit Webb’s s reporting after it became national news.

A final shock comes at the end. I won’t give it away. But it is true. As in, “Life is stranger than fiction.”

Critical Reception 

*  “Evokes the detailed energy and ennui of enterprise journalism, and thanks to Jeremy Renner’s best performance outside The Hurt Locker, Webb comes across as a more meaningfully complex character than most comparable crusaders, real or imagined.” (MidWest Film Journal)

* “Kill the Messenger does a credible if not dazzling job. In fact, the movie is a lot like the reporting that inspired it: a good introduction to a diabolically tangled tale.” (NPR)

* “It’s an engrossing portrait not only of government intrigue and crusading after the truth, but of media and their tangled motivations.” (Boston Globe)

* “Kill the Messenger is a David-and-Goliath story where truth is the slingshot – a fragile weapon that needs to score a fatal hit before the big guy gets mad.” (LA Weekly)

You can watch the trailer here.