It's hard and heartbreaking to watch even the sweetest, most celebratory parts of Kill the Messenger. Because, by now, we know for certain what many of the players in this true tale of mid-1990s journalism and skullduggery did not know: Namely that Gary Webb, a prize-winning reporter for the San Jose Mercury News, was dead fucking on when he nailed the CIA for doing business, back in the 1980s, with the Central American drug traffickers who helped wreck America's inner cities with crack cocaine. Kill the Messenger crackles with tension and what becomes a creeping, growing danger as Webb, played by a genially roguish Jeremy Renner, pushes closer to the truth he's found and stands defiant in the face of the shitstorm that ensues. Renner, sometimes just in the set of his eyes, somehow keeps Webb looking both broken and resolute. For all the thrill points Cuesta's cooked in, you get the sense Kill the Messenger couldn't have held together without Renner's intense gravity. by Denis C. Theriault