Reviews

This movie was a surprising disappointment to me. Despite a potentially riveting story and a strong performance from the always-engaging Jeremy Renner, this film followed a predictable, cliché-ridden narrative, rarely deviating into the original. The praise from critics and viewers can likely be attributed to two factors: the image of a courageous, talented journalist (Gary Webb) pursuing and defending his story against pressure from multiple angles, and the fact that the target of his investigation was the Reagan administration's CIA, frequently a target of Hollywood. Considering these factors, this film was NEVER going to get a bad review. A far superior film within this genre is "Shattered Glass," a more credible, sophisticated story about a young crackpot who nearly destroyed the New Republic.

Alas, this film goes from zero to tedious very quickly. Webb is portrayed in an idealized fashion more suitable to Frank Capra movies of the 1940s - the earnest moral giant surrounded by relative pygmies, save his loyal wife (also well-portrayed by Rosemarie DeWitt). Only a previous extramarital affair with a tragic ending blemishes his character.

All the remaining characters are figures straight out of central casting that we've seen a hundred times before. The spineless newspaper editors and executives who get cold feet when the story gets questioned - check. The jealous competitors who gleefully go after the hero instead of his story - check. The shady, sinister CIA agents - check. The ex-CIA agent who gets an attack of conscience - check. This last character, portrayed by Ray Liotta, laughably implies that the Central American radicals of that era that were being opposed by the CIA wanted elected governments. Their motto of "bullets, not ballots" suggested otherwise.

While the wisdom, legality and morality of Reagan's support to the Contras can and is subject to legitimate debate to this day, longtime critics of the agency and, seemingly, the producers of this film, seem to think that gaining information on America's enemies can never involve nefarious characters. Maybe they think that we can stop the next ISIL-inspired terrorist attack by getting information from the Boy Scouts, but I digress.

Having an appreciation for so much of Scorsese's better-known films and believing that most artists/musicians/directors' best work is the earliest work, I expected perhaps too much of this movie. Instead, I found it ponderous, poorly edited, an uninteresting plot with even less interesting characters, DeNiro's excepted.

While Scorsese captures the New York City of the early 70s well, Harvey Keitel's talents are largely untapped, and I found myself wondering why there was no apparent movement in the plot 45 minutes into this film. With DeNiro's standout performance being that of a completely unlikeable character, the final climax of the film left me, well, uncaring and glad the credits were rolling.

Watch this if you're a Scorsese fan and want to say you've seen all of his flicks. Otherwise, don't bother spending two hours you can't get back watching this snoozefest.