“Kill the Messenger” tells the true story of a minor-league investigative journalist who breaks a huge story about corruption at the highest levels of government. But unlike the journalist heroes in “All the King’s Men,” this is not a story of triumph, but of defeat.

Instead of a tale about a government brought down by the truth, “Kill the Messenger” shows how reporting the truth can bring down the journalist. As one informant cautions, “Some stories are just too true to tell.”

In 1996, Gary Webb was a local reporter for the San Jose Mercury News when he cracked open a story with national and international repercussions. He uncovered evidence that the booming 1980s cocaine trade in this country had the tacit approval of the CIA because its profits were bankrolling the Contras in Nicaragua. The first half of this film follows Webb as he tracks down the story, from local drug dealers in San Jose to drug lords in Nicaragua to confidential insiders in Washington D.C.

When the government catches wind of what Webb is up to, he’s summoned back to CIA headquarters.

Webb ignores the CIA’s clumsy threats and, shortly thereafter, the Mercury News publishes a three-part series entitled “Dark Alliance” exposing the CIA’s role. It creates a media sensation, but it also creates a powerful backlash. Not only does the government do what it can to discredit Webb, more surprisingly so do the major media outlets. If this film is to be believed, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and especially the Los Angeles Times went into hyperdrive to discredit Webb’s story, primarily because they couldn’t abide being beaten on the biggest story of the decade. The hatchet job on Webb is successful enough that even his own paper demotes him. It’s an infuriating and dispiriting story that needs to be told.

Unfortunately, “Kill the Messenger” doesn’t quite do the story justice. Jeremy Renner is very good as the intrepid Webb, but the emotional energy of the movie peaks when the news story first goes public – and that’s only the halfway point of the film. The screenplay can’t figure out how to dramatize the downhill slide of Webb’s career. Sure it’s unfair, but that doesn’t make it compelling.

A smarter move may have been to take the focus off Webb the man and put it instead on either the scandal that he exposed or the journalistic infighting that he inspired.

“Kill the Messenger” does a great service in publicizing a story that deserves more attention, but it also inadvertently points out that cinema may be the wrong medium for this kind of story. The book it’s based on is no doubt better.