Journalist uncovers a dark secret
Photos courtesy of M Pictures
Did you know
Kill the Messenger is based on a book of the same name by Nick Schou and on the book Dark Alliance by Gary Webb.
Based on the true story of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Gary Webb, Kill the Messenger is a frightening thriller about a reporter’s quest for truth in the 1990s that took him from the prisons of California to the villages of Nicaragua to the corridors of power in Washington, DC.
After moving with his family to California, Gary Webb (Jeremy Renner) works as a respected reporter at the San Jose Mercury News. His career takes a turn when a cocaine trafficker’s girlfriend, Coral Baca (Paz Vega), slips him a Grand Jury transcript which reveals a link between US intelligence and Central American cocaine smuggling.
Webb begins shadowing Alan Fenster (Tim Blake Nelson), the defense lawyer for Los Angeles crack kingpin Ricky Ross (Michael Kenneth Williams). The journalist soon realises that he has stumbled onto a story which leads to the shady origins of cheap, seemingly limitless cocaine found on the city streets of the US, and which further alleges that Nicaraguan rebels working directly with the CIA were smuggling cocaine into the US, using the profits to arm Contra militias in Nicaragua.
With the backing of his paper’s editor Anna Simons (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), Webb’s reportage runs in print and online as a series of articles entitled “Dark Alliance.” However, Webb’s work and reputation soon begin to be attacked in a vicious smear campaign, while his family is harassed by drug kingpins and menacing surveillance intended to make him give up his investigation.
Find out what happens when the dramatic Kill the Messenger hits local cinemas on December 10.
Vocabulary
- shadow (v): to follow and watch somebody closely and secretly
crack (n): an illegal and highly addictive drug made from cocaine
kingpin (n): the most important person in an organisation or activity
shady (adj): seeming to be dishonest or illegal
militia (n): a group of people who are not professional soldiers but who have had military training and can act as an army
smear (n): an untrue story about somebody that is intended to damage their reputation
