Journalist Gary Webb, California 1996, started investigating CIA's role in the 1980s in getting crack cocaine to the black part of LA to get money and weapons to the Contra insurgents in Nic... Read allJournalist Gary Webb, California 1996, started investigating CIA's role in the 1980s in getting crack cocaine to the black part of LA to get money and weapons to the Contra insurgents in Nicaragua.Journalist Gary Webb, California 1996, started investigating CIA's role in the 1980s in getting crack cocaine to the black part of LA to get money and weapons to the Contra insurgents in Nicaragua.
- Awards
- 3 wins & 6 nominations
Joshua Close
- Rich Kline
- (as Josh Close)
Clay Edmund Kraski
- DEA Agent Jones
- (as Clay Kraski)
- Director
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaVarious members of the cast and crew have admitted to receiving government-level "push back" to the film, both during filming and in post-production.
- GoofsJerry Ceppos announces that Gary has been named the National Press Association's Journalist of the Year. There is no such thing as the National Press Association. He was named Journalist of the Year by the Bay Area Society of Professional Journalists. This is why he is speaking at the SPJ awards at the end of the film.
- Crazy creditsJust before the closing credits, there is a short video showing the real Gary Webb at home with his children.
- SoundtracksBring It On Home
Written by Tommy Girvin and Don Cromwell
Performed by Ransom
Courtesy of 474 Records and Music Supervisor Inc.
Featured review
I try to see every one of Jeremy Renner's films after his great performance in Kathryn Bigelow's THE HURT LOCKER where he played a Sergeant in Iraq dismantling IED's (improvised explosive devices) in the dusty, tension filled streets of Baghdad. I will never forget a scene in the shower, water pouring over his bloodied body slowly slumping down to the ground, tears mixing in with the wet spray that was bathing his body; an attempt to cleanse his psyche of the horrors of warfare. In KILL THE MESSENGER directed by Michael Cuesta, based on a true story, Renner is in another descent - one that is politically driven - in an intense performance as Pulitzer Prize winner Gary Webb, an investigative journalist for the San Jose Mercury News writing a series entitled "Dark Alliance" on the CIA's drug dealing connection to the "Contras" in the war in Nicaragua in the 1980's. "
Webb investigated Nicaraguans linked to the CIA-backed Contras who had smuggled cocaine into the U.S. Their smuggled cocaine was distributed as crack cocaine in Los Angeles, with the profits funneled back to the Contras. Webb also alleged that this influx of Nicaraguan-supplied cocaine sparked, and significantly fueled, the widespread crack cocaine epidemic that swept through many U.S. cities during the 1980s. According to Webb, the CIA was aware of the cocaine transactions and the large shipments of drugs into the U.S. by Contra personnel. Webb charged that the Reagan administration shielded inner-city drug dealers from prosecution in order to raise money for the Contras, especially after Congress passed the Boland Amendment, which prohibited direct Contra funding
" (Wikipedia)
In this film we see the backlash to Webb's reporting including correspondents from the mighty NY Times, The LA Times and The Washington Post who had glazed over the story in their own papers; the tragic manipulation of facts in order to destroy the veracity of Webb's coverage of events. We view the absence of San Jose Mercury News' editorial support at critical moments in Webb's heroic scrutiny of the research; the Reagan Administration's financing of a war through drug trafficking pitting "truth vs. power"; the perversion of principle to the needs of "security" on the backs of the South Central Los Angeles community. One does not need to "kill the messenger" with bullets - one can do so through the media attacking the person not the story under the potent pressure of the government.
KILL THE MESSENGER attempts to portray Gary Webb in his domestic, familial role as a loving though humanly "flawed" father of 3 children, with a supportive loving wife (the beautiful actor Rosemarie De Witt) all in danger and threatened by Webb's probing into the murkiness of political sludge - the undisclosed secrets of the inner workings of government aired out inviting dirty revenge. This is also a David vs. Goliath tale - a lone person who in his "innocence" believes in the unveiling of the machinations of authority through the pen and the judiciousness of our legal system.
The portrait of Gary Webb is a tenacious and vivid study of idealism in the fight for the unearthing of corruption. I left the theater saddened and disheartened, but at the same time hopeful for those rare individuals who are fearless enough to stand up for what they believe when their support system has been paralyzed. Hard to do! They merit my deepest respect and admiration.
In this film we see the backlash to Webb's reporting including correspondents from the mighty NY Times, The LA Times and The Washington Post who had glazed over the story in their own papers; the tragic manipulation of facts in order to destroy the veracity of Webb's coverage of events. We view the absence of San Jose Mercury News' editorial support at critical moments in Webb's heroic scrutiny of the research; the Reagan Administration's financing of a war through drug trafficking pitting "truth vs. power"; the perversion of principle to the needs of "security" on the backs of the South Central Los Angeles community. One does not need to "kill the messenger" with bullets - one can do so through the media attacking the person not the story under the potent pressure of the government.
KILL THE MESSENGER attempts to portray Gary Webb in his domestic, familial role as a loving though humanly "flawed" father of 3 children, with a supportive loving wife (the beautiful actor Rosemarie De Witt) all in danger and threatened by Webb's probing into the murkiness of political sludge - the undisclosed secrets of the inner workings of government aired out inviting dirty revenge. This is also a David vs. Goliath tale - a lone person who in his "innocence" believes in the unveiling of the machinations of authority through the pen and the judiciousness of our legal system.
The portrait of Gary Webb is a tenacious and vivid study of idealism in the fight for the unearthing of corruption. I left the theater saddened and disheartened, but at the same time hopeful for those rare individuals who are fearless enough to stand up for what they believe when their support system has been paralyzed. Hard to do! They merit my deepest respect and admiration.
- graupepillard
- Oct 23, 2014
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Details
Box office
- Gross US & Canada
- $2,450,846
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $941,809
- Oct 12, 2014
- Gross worldwide
- $5,218,973
- Runtime1 hour 52 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 2.35 : 1
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