This is a true story about a San Jose Mercury News journalist who wrote articles about the CIA and cocaine being brought into California in order to fund contras in Nicaragua. Good to see the journalist's difficulties in exposing big issues. In the light of all the whistle blowing of recent days it's interesting to see the earlier cases that didn't have the media explosion of today.

It's told in a matter of fact way. There is a familiar cast who don't have too big personalities so they are believable. Jeremy Renner suits the role well your typical everyman against the establishment. Mary Elizabeth Winstead is good too - not to glamorous but watchable.

After watching this movie it makes one want to read up further into all sides of the story like did the Washington Post attack the journalist rather than further investigate the issue and how much of the CIA's involvement is fact vs fiction.

It's 1996. San Jose Mercury News reporter Gary Webb (Jeremy Renner) is tackling drug forfeitures by the government. He gets a lead on an explosive story. He uncovers CIA's involvement in cocaine trafficking into California leading to the crack epidemic. His article "Dark Alliance" is a national sensation. Then CIA sources and other media outlets ride a smear campaign to discredit him. He is relegated to inconsequential stories as he struggles for his reputation, his sanity and his family.

There are a couple of slow sections that keeps the tension from rising. The first thirty minutes are too slow and needs a lot of trimming. The courtroom testimony revealing the CIA connection is electric. Then the movie slows once again investigating into names and characters that the audience has limited time with. Much of that could be simplified into montages. It's not my favorite movie device but it's needed here. The movie picks up again with the publication and the heart of the movie. The missing time could have been filled with the Rich Kline character in the L.A. Times and his investigation. He could have been Gary's foil in the movie. The story is interesting but the movie lacks tension.

I do wonder if Jeremy Renner wakes up and realises how he made it as a major movie star. There was a joke doing the rounds when The Hurt Locker was released that every time you saw a familiar face in that movie you knew he would die in a few minutes apart from Renner who was then mainly unknown.

However Renner does have a quiet dignity in his acting which is far from showy and he does have some charisma. He seems to take the fact that he made it big in movies in his stride, he lets his films do the talking for him.

In Kill the Messenger, he plays Gary Webb an investigative journalist who uncovered that the CIA were involved in drug smuggling in the USA in order to illegally raise funds for the Contras in Nicaragua in the 1980's.

The story is based on facts and Webb's scoop ruffled a few feathers in Washington, the CIA and the journalistic community as a reporter in a lowly newspaper trumped some of the bigger newspapers.

During his investigation Webb is warned of the consequences of going in print by several people. After the story his journalistic integrity comes into question. The film portrays this as character assassination from people or organisations jealous of his success or have something to hide.

Renner plays Webb as a dogged journalist with integrity and someone who cares for his family but it is hinted early on that he may had made mistakes in the past. The reality was that Webb was accused by some for being overzealous in his desire to seek out a story and overlook facts that did not fit.

However the film does well in making a complicated story straightforward. The problem is his rise as he gets the story is too smooth. Even Woodward and Bernstein faced more obstacles getting their scoop and they did not have to bribe their way into a jail in Central America.

When the inevitable downfall comes the films loses his way. His detractors including the people in his own newspaper come across as cowardly. The again I realised that maybe matters have presented maybe too much in black and white rather than shades of grey.