DOTTING THE T’S AND CROSSING THE I’S: Gary Webb (Jeremy Renner) carefully checks his facts during the course of gathering information to be used in his inflammatory esposé of the Central Intelligence Agency’s dealings with the Nicaraguan Contras. Webb’s story “Dark Alliance” was published in the San Jose Mercury News, in a series of articles in 1996.
(Photo by Chuck Zlotnick, © 2013, Focus Features LLC. All Rights Reserved)

In August of 1996, the San Jose Mercury News published an exposé detailing how the Central Intelligence Agency had orchestrated the importation of crack cocaine from Nicaragua and its distribution in the black community of South Central Los Angeles. Entitled “Dark Alliance,” the series of stories were written by Gary Webb (Jeremy Renner), an investigative journalist who had risked life and limb to obtain and release the incendiary information.

For example, while conducting his research, he had been asked by a CIA operative who was trying to intimidate him “Do you have a family?” The spy agency was determined to suppress any facts that might shed light on its covert dealings with the Contras, the rebels who were attempting to topple the government of Nicaragua.

But Webb, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, would not be intimidated and he completed the piece. And even though he had supported his allegations with declassified documents obtained via the Freedom of Information Act, the CIA secretly enlisted the assistance of the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times to discredit him.

These prominent papers discredited the notion that the CIA was behind the dissemination of crack in the inner-city. Nevertheless, Dark Alliance became the biggest story of the year, especially among African-Americans, many of whom surfed the internet in order to read the damning report.

Congresswoman Maxine Waters (Dem-Calif.) took to the House floor warning that “Somebody’s going to have to pay for what they have done to my people.” Yet, the revelations seemed to take the greatest toll on Gary Webb, who lost his good name, his job, his career, his home, and even his wife (Rosemarie DeWitt).

This shameful chapter in American history is the subject of Kill the Messenger, a sobering biopic directed by Michael Cuesta and starring Jeremy Renner. The film features a cast that includes Ray Liotta, Barry Pepper, Tim Blake Nelson, Andy Garcia, Oliver Platt, Michael Sheen, Robert Patrick, and Paz Vega.

However, this riveting thriller is Renner’s movie, and the two time Academy Award-nominee (The Hurt Locker and The Town) delivers another Oscar-quality performance as a family man and respected writer who slowly becomes a paranoid soul haunted by demons and hunted by Machiavellian mercenaries.

Excellent (****). Rated R for profanity and drug use. Running time: 112 minutes. Distributor: Focus Features.