REVIEW: Kill the Messenger

20 03 2015

Michael Cuesta’s “Kill the Messenger” plays like an “All the President’s Men” for an era of the lone eagle rather than the journalistic tag team.  Jeremy Renner stars as muckraking journalist Gary Webb, a reporter who uncovers a 1980s CIA conspiracy that use the smuggling of crack cocaine into the U.S. as a front to launder weapons into Central America.  In essence, poor American communities are collateral damage to freedom fighting operations.

The first half features him uncovering the story, and the second half follows the fallout after publication.  Unlike Woodward and Bernstein, who had the backing of the Washington Post, Webb just wrote for a small outlet out of San Jose that lacked the resources or the confidence to stand with the controversial piece.  The CIA, of course, sought to discredit the story, and archival footage shows how the mainstream media ran with their smear campaign.

Renner is potent and forceful as the leading man of the film, clinging to his ethics and pride when all else around him seems to fail.  “Kill the Messenger” thrives because of his righteous anger.  His work also receives bolstering from a tremendous supporting cast with solid turns from character actors like Rosemarie DeWitt, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Oliver Platt, and Michael Kenneth Williams.

I can scarcely think of a critique for “Kill the Messenger,” except maybe the fact that it lacks an X-factor to take it from very good to great.  Still, Cuesta turns Peter Landesman’s tightly wound script into an entertaining, enthralling watch.  I can’t complain about that at all.  B+ / 3stars


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F.I.L.M. of the Week (January 11, 2013)

11 01 2013

Melquiades Estrada

Most people recognize Tommy Lee Jones’ calling as an actor.  The Academy sure does, giving him one Oscar in 1993 for “The Fugitive” and a chance at another one in 2012 for “Lincoln.”  But what few people know is that if Jones gave up his day job and took up directing full-time, he would be incredibly successful.

Just take a look at his debut feature, “The Three Burials of Meliquiades Estrada,” and tell me the man does not have serious talent.  While I was watching it, I kept thinking about all the reasons why I shouldn’t like it or that it shouldn’t be working.  But it did, and for that very reason, it’s my pick for the “F.I.L.M. of the Week.”

Jones’ film is based in a strong script from Guillermo Arriaga, one full of tenderness and deliberation.  And perhaps the best sign of a good director is to let the story shine brightly and take precedence.  Though maybe Jones’ style isn’t flashy, the appropriately ambling pace and quaintness of “The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada” feels like just the right fit.

Jones also lends his acting talents to the film, bringing the movie an undeniable sense of Texas gallantry and steadfastness.  As Pete Perkins, a noble ranch hand, he goes to whatever means necessary to ensure that his friend Melquiades Estrada gets a proper burial.  It takes him across the border, crosses his paths with various interesting people, and entangles complicated alliances.  But he will keep his word to Melquiades at all costs.

He also manages to get fine performances out of his cast, which includes a very physically committed Barry Pepper along with January Jones and Melissa Leo well before they were mainstream names.  But the real triumph of “The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada” is, well, Tommy Lee Jones himself.  He makes the film feel so natural and easygoing, almost as if every other movie is a NASCAR racer and his is a horse clipping along.  It’s that kind of brilliant direction where you almost think the film is directing itself.  Pretty impressive for a first film.


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F.I.L.M. of the Week (October 7, 2011)

7 10 2011

I don’t quite know what inspired me to watch “25th Hour” recently, but I’m certainly glad that I did.  Spike Lee’s 2002 film about the heavy weight of the past and the future that we carry around in the present got little attention at the time, but over time, it has gained some passionate backers, namely Roger Ebert.  That inspired me to check the movie out, and while I don’t think it’s one of my favorites of the decade, it’s good enough to qualify as a “F.I.L.M. of the Week.”

David Benioff’s script captures a day of solemn importance in the life of Montgomery “Monty” Brogan, played with typical excellence by Edward Norton.  We follow Monty in the last 24 hours before he must head up to prison to serve a 7 year sentence for dealing drugs.  He is remorseful for his past, apprehensive for his future, and filled with anger and hatred in the moment.  As he spends a day in a sort of purgatory state, we see the uneasy state of his relationships with his friends (Philip Seymour Hoffman and Barry Pepper) and girlfriend (Rosario Dawson) as they all offer a sort of false optimism.

While this story is quite limited, what makes “25th Hour” such an interesting film (and one that I suspect will be increasingly viewed as a reference for future generations) is how poetically Spike Lee juxtaposes Monty’s biography with the larger tale of society, here post-9/11 New York City.  After the film’s prologue, Lee rolls the opening credits over various takes of the two bright beams of light shining to the heavens from Ground Zero.  Much like Monty, the site is a reminder of the emptiness of that day, while the lights represent a brighter future that can still be rebuilt once the ashes are removed.

In perhaps the film’s most memorable scene, Lee employs a sort of Allen Ginsberg-meets-NWA rhythmic lyricism to express the pent-up rage that many New Yorkers felt in the wake of the tragedy.  It’s an unsettling, no-holds-barred diatribe against the city and everyone in it, and a man like Monty about to lose everything is the perfect person to deliver it.  Yet “25th Hour” is not just a movie of anger; indeed, Lee, ever the New York filmmaker, makes his movie an admiring tribute to the city’s strength and perseverance.  Even as Monty heads off to the pen, there’s a smiling child on the bus in the next lane willing to smile at him.


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