The title of this movie couldn’t be more fitting. What happened to Webb was disgraceful, and went far in turning investigative journalists into a dying breed no amount of bloggers or slipshod Internet trolls could ever replace.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Apr 2, 2024

...compelling subject matter that’s employed to predominantly engaging (albeit somewhat forgettable) effect by Michael Cuesta...

| Original Score: 3/4 | Nov 12, 2023

The fine technical merits of Cuesta's film, along with the standout performances by the cast, fail to create a sense of urgency about a subject that should have been a much larger scandal.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jul 18, 2022

Overall, this is an emotional, powerful retelling of Webb's story.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | May 27, 2021

Cuesta's Kill the Messenger is a worthwhile and serious effort, which can only help discredit the various institutions involved.

| Feb 26, 2021

Loses momentum when the movie becomes more about lionizing Webb than it does following the Nicaragua story.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Feb 2, 2021

Presented as a mixture of journalistic woe and political conspiracy, a brightly scrubbed cast and a tightly wound pace manage to make the best use of its running time.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 6, 2019

Evokes the detailed energy and ennui of enterprise journalism, and thanks to Jeremy Renner's best performance outside The Hurt Locker, Webb comes across as a more meaningfully complex character than most comparable crusaders, real or imagined.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 24, 2019

Kill the Messenger is worth seeing for Renner's work and for the information it provides about its time and its subject.

| Original Score: B | Jan 10, 2019

Kill the Messenger was, in my opinion, one of the more solid dramas in this year's local release schedule.

| Jan 7, 2019

Grim, taut and smartly paced, Kill The Messenger is undoubtedly one of the best crime-dramas of the year. Watch it.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Nov 11, 2017

The acting in Kill The Messenger can't be faulted. I just wish the movie itself was as focused and driven as Renner's performance.

| Oct 18, 2017

Come for the acting, but not much else.

| Original Score: C- | Sep 1, 2017

The movie is full of fine actors doing fine work in so-so roles... Their performances, rather than Michael Cuesta's uncertain direction, give the movie its considerable energy.

| Jun 28, 2017

The script by former journalist Peter Landesman, who recently directed the medical drama Concussion, does a good job of simplifying a complex real-life chain of events.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Apr 6, 2016

The film doesn't demand that you now respect Webb or sing his praises, but it does ask you to look at the cracks in that tranquil faade, and to keep looking, no matter how much it seems to fracture.

| Original Score: B- | Feb 26, 2016

The first half of the movie captivates as it runs through his impressive investigation. But the fallout from Webb's scoop is less enthralling and the story loses traction as it focuses on his crumbling personal life.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 29, 2015

The muddled movie contains all the elements of a top-notch muckraker, deployed erratically and to increasingly diminished returns.

| May 12, 2015

It's sporadically gripping but ultimately rather frustrating fare, leaving us intrigued enough by the conspiracy-theory backstory to want hard documentary evidence rather than mere dramatic licence.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Mar 8, 2015

Jeremy Renner is on terrific form... but the rest of the movie doesn't quite live up to his impressively nuanced performance.

| Mar 7, 2015