In the annals of newspaper movies, "Kill the Messenger" doesn't make a more gripping procedural than "All the President's Men," but it's zippier and more politically savvy than, say, "State of Play" or any number of other fact-based melodramas about stubborn reporters who get caught in the cross hairs of network news videographers and/or government snipers.

In addition, "Messenger" has a weirdly riveting and rather marvelous actor in Jeremy Renner ("The Hurt Locker"), whose turn as the late CIA antagonist Gary Webb offers the spectacle of a guy who looks nervous in the calmest situations reacting to threats against his livelihood, his career and, eventually, his family.

Directed sensitively and entertainingly by Michael Cuesta, whose work as creator of Showtime's paranoia-enhancing "Homeland" made him just about perfect for this, the film is closely based on two books — including one by Webb himself — about the investigative journalist's mid-1990s work at the San Jose Mercury News, and its fatal repercussions.

"Kill the Messenger" follows Webb's incremental uncovering of the CIA's role in importing cocaine into California's inner cities in order to fund the 1980s arming of contra rebels in Nicaragua. It also dramatizes the subsequent smear campaign mounted by rival news outlets and conservative corporate interests, presumably acting under government influence, and the ultimate killing of the messenger, Webb, by enemies or by his own hand. (Webb's death from two gunshot wounds to the head was ruled a suicide.)

To his credit, Cuesta is interested not only in the darkest side of democracy, but in how Webb's fiery work impacts his personal life. Webb, whose rebellious and thrill-seeking nature is evident early in his beer swilling, pot smoking, motorcycle riding and Clash record playing, can't help but file incendiary stories even after sensing that his targets will stop at nothing to retaliate.

Dangerously addicted to praise from his family and colleagues, Webb is a man who'd seemingly rather die than be seen getting pushed around. When big media outlets respond to the small-town reporter's "Dark Alliance" series by digging up dirt on him and "controversializing" his ideas (while Webb starts seeing figures hiding in the shadows), the film makes its main point — that truth is infinitely malleable by those with the most power.

Renner has the rhythm of Webb's seesawing moods down cold, while the movie's supporting players, including Rosemarie DeWitt as Webb's wife and Mary Elizabeth Winstead as his editor, are excellent at embodying the collateral damage of an investigation their characters support and suffer.

In what may be his strongest directorial choice of all, Cuesta devotes screen time to portraying the outrage of African-American activists whose communities were ravaged by the crack cocaine epidemic that spread with the CIA's substantial assistance. Front page or not, that story deserves a movie of its own.

Rob Nelson writes about movies.