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Forum Overview
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The Zionist Media Conspiracy
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by Did the CIA Ruin This Movie Review 09/26/2018, 5:57am PDT |
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The first half of Kill the Messenger is wonderful. Jeremy Renner plays Gary Webb, the small time San Jose journalist who in 1996 blew the lid off the CIA's complicity in America's crack epidemic. According to the film, the CIA allowed Nicaraguan kingpins to smuggle Robert Downey Jr. quantities of cocaine into the US, in exchange for financing a guerilla war against the democratically elected communists running their own country. Watching Renner chase down the conspiracy is the kind of thrilling investigative procedural that never fails to hold my attention. It doesn't last.
Unlike the Irish thriller I watched last week, Hidden Agenda (1990), which pursued its own OSTENSIBLY fictional (but only because the filmmakers couldn't prove it) conspiracy all the way to the highest levels of MI6, Kill the Messenger runs into a brick wall about halfway through. That's when Renner publishes his story, bringing down the wrath of every major news organization he scooped, and spends the rest of the movie literally beating his fists against the aforementioned brick wall as a jealous press turns his life to shambles. The movie ends in a hotel ballroom with Renner, fists all bandaged up from frustratedly punching his own car like he thinks it's Street Fighter, giving a big speech in front of the world's journalists or maybe just San Jose's journalists in which he excorciates them for being more interested in poking holes in his story than following up on it, and starts to cry when he reminds them why he got into this business in the first place (to tell the truth). He then steps onto an escalator and ascends heavenwards, where a title card informs us he eventually took his own life. Or did he dun dun dun?
Backing up a bit, there's a scene before that where a retired CIA dirty tricks man (played by silver fox Ray Liotta) appears in Renner's room in the middle of the night, confirms everything, but refuses to go on record or provide any reason to believe he wasn't an utter fabrication. I have no problem with the film including a scene like this - the true story of the CIA poisoning poor people at home to buy guns to shoot poor people abroad is muddy and poorly sourced, but above all still probably true, so it's reassuring to know that at least the movie believes it. I just wish they would've respected their audience enough to delve a little further into the language of cinema. Show Liotta take Renner by the hand and fly out of his bedroom window like Peter Pan, wind caressing their faces - oh, the pure joy of flight! - only to gaze down from beneath a green screened starry night at all the heinous crimes the CIA is perpetrating right now around the world, while every other reporter is at home in stocking cap, sound asleep. It would've been a bold if fantastically unwise choice, the kind I think the real Gary Webb would've appreciated. |
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Pan (2015) by Pirate Pirate Movie Review 09/12/2018, 2:16am PDT 
Would you say you panned the movie? NT by TDARCOS 2.0 09/12/2018, 10:39pm PDT
You might say it didn't "capture my interest." by Pirate Police Procedural Review 09/13/2018, 1:51am PDT
Identity also had a stupid twist ending :( by laudablepuss 09/13/2018, 7:59am PDT
My name is by Michael Cane 09/13/2018, 8:14am PDT
My name is actually NT by Michael Caine 09/13/2018, 1:22pm PDT
I just saw 6 Souls. Not bad! by D.I.D. D.V.D. Review 09/14/2018, 1:47am PDT
Re: I just saw 6 Souls. Not bad! by laudablepuss 09/14/2018, 9:37am PDT
Re: I just saw 6 Souls. Not bad! by laudablepuss 09/14/2018, 10:00am PDT
I think we're learning a lot about ourselves from our responses to this movie. by D.I.D. D.V.D. Review 09/14/2018, 1:39pm PDT
?_? NT by laudablepuss 09/14/2018, 3:34pm PDT
That's supposed to be the glare of disapproval by laudablepuss 09/14/2018, 3:37pm PDT
OK, maybe you didn't say it, maybe it was Jesse Ventura. But I bet you agree! by D.I.D. D.V.D. Review 09/14/2018, 5:41pm PDT
The other guy made me want to watch this NT by ~_~ 09/14/2018, 7:02pm PDT
Have you seen Devil's Gate? It might be half a star better. by Barely Made It To DVD Review 09/14/2018, 7:45pm PDT
I did like one part by laudablepuss 09/15/2018, 6:43am PDT
I watched Shimmer Lake tonight. It was okay! Mild spoilers. by Rob v. Nate CorddryVD Review 09/17/2018, 12:44am PDT
Re: I watched Shimmer Lake tonight. It was okay! Mild spoilers. by laudablepuss 09/17/2018, 9:26am PDT
I can see your point, and I didn't DIS-like the movie, however... (SPOILERS) by Rob v. Nate CorddryVD Review 09/17/2018, 4:34pm PDT
Re: I can see your point, and I didn't DIS-like the movie, however... (SPOILERS) by laudablepuss 09/18/2018, 8:10am PDT
Sure, that works. I guess her heart was as cold as her ass was phat. by Pirate Private Memory Review 09/18/2018, 10:00pm PDT
In other news by laudablepuss 09/18/2018, 8:38am PDT
I wanted to do Breakfast at Tiffany's but I wasn't hungry for it NT by Commander Tansin A. Darcos 09/13/2018, 8:44am PDT
House Party: a great film, and a timely reminder why I shouldn't get an undercut by Pirate Party DVD Review 09/20/2018, 9:06pm PDT
Re: House Party: a great film, and a timely reminder why I shouldn't get an unde by Vested Id 09/20/2018, 9:15pm PDT
Kill the Messenger (2014) by Did the CIA Ruin This Movie Review 09/26/2018, 5:57am PDT
The Loft (2014) by Second-Rate Verhoeven Review 10/04/2018, 8:22pm PDT
The Quiet American (2002) by Vietnamese Pirate Movie Review 01/09/2019, 5:07pm PST
The one good scene in Sidney Lumet's terminal Family Business (1989) by Hong Kong Pirate Movie Review 04/13/2019, 6:03am PDT
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