Jeremy Renner film follows Gary Webb’s reporting of controversial 1990s CIA-drug story for Mercury news, and the backlash that followed Jeremy Renner, left, and director Michael Cuesta consult on the set of “Kill the Messenger.” In the new film, Renner portrays journalist Gary Webb, who committed suicide in Carmichael in 2004. In his Carmichael home in 1997, Gary Webb sits amid documents he used for his series “Dark Alliance” for the San Jose Mercury News.