‘Kill The Messenger’ Trailer: Jeremy Renner Leads Oscar Contender

May 29th, 2014

Kevin Blumeyer

Based on a true story, Kill The Messenger stars Jeremy Renner as journalist Gary Webb, who exposes the CIA’s role in importing cocaine into the U.S. and arming Contra rebels fighting in Nicaragua. While the story takes place in the 1990s, everything I’ve seen from the film so far, from this just-released first trailer to the fantastic poster (which I’ve also included below), takes me back to the ’70s, when this sort of paranoia-fueled conspiracy thriller was all the rage (see: Three Days of the Condor, The Parallax View, The Conversation, All The President’s Men, etc.).

Directed by Michael Cuesta, who has helmed eight episodes of Homeland, from a screenplay by Peter Landesman (Parkland), the film surrounds Renner with an outstanding supporting cast that includes Rosemarie DeWitt, Ray Liotta, Tim Blake Nelson and Andy Garcia, just to name a few. Focus has set an October 10 release date for the film, which suggests we could be looking at a possible Oscar contender.