Crimezine catches Dog Eat Dog the new movie by Paul “Taxi Driver”Schrader, featuring Nicolas Cage and Willem Dafoe.

Bonsoir Crimeziners. All hail the American night. It is rare that the fates align so fully as they do this week on the

Dog Eat Dog: Paul Schrader’s latest crime masterpiece featuring Nicolas Cage and Willem Dafoe

cinematic release of Paul Schrader’s Dog Eat Dog featuring Nicholas Cage and Willem Dafoe; so the excitement at Casa del Crimezine is almost tangible.

Crimeziners will no doubt be aware that the movie is based on the book by legendary ex con and crime writer extraordinaire Ed [Mr. Blue] Bunker. Released in 1995, the book has been described by James Ellroy as, “the best armed-robbery novel ever written”. It is an ugly dirty book, based largely on the personal experiences that landed Bunker in prison. The themes of violence stupidity and betrayal feature heavily; it is easy to see from the very first page that the lives of those involved are never going to come good and we can only hold our collective breath as the pages flip by and we are drawn ever deeper into a spiral of conspiracy and degradation that is horrifying, compelling and exceptionally well written.

Paul Schrader needs no introduction. He is one of the great men of American cinema, a writer and director of exceptional talent and creativity. In a similar way to Bunker he has an understanding of adversity forged in hard fought experience. He once said he wrote the script for Taxi Driver while he was living rough in his car on Hollywood Boulevard, He said [to Bret Easton Ellis] that at the time he felt he was Travis Bickle. That understood, it is little wonder that Schrader became involved in Dog Eat Dog; a story that has much in common with the dysfunctional world of Travis Bickle, portrayed so unforgettably by Robert De Niro.

This is no mainstream crime movie. That is clear from the get go. The first five minutes of Dog Eat Dog are so dirty, weird and irredeemably nasty that strong emotions will rise within you—you may laugh, you may cheer, you may barf, and you may cry—you will certainly be clutching the seat rests, maybe even hiding behind the seat, your teeth embedded in the fabric, wondering just how bad, bad can get.

The horror comes in waves—the cast deliver performances that leave one wondering where reality ends and the snaking world of celluloid fantasy begins. Ghosts of David Lynch and the Cohn brothers rise before us. This can be no coincidence as the nexus of Willem Dafoe and Nicolas Cage conjures dark and surreal visions of Lynch’s 1990 movie Wild at Heart. Cage and Dafoe have decades of mainstream Hollyweird success behind them now, but it was darkness such as this [and the weirdness of the Cohn’s Raising Arizona] that led them on that path to mega stardom in the first place.

Dog Eat Dog is crime cinema at its ugliest and most primitive, but there is meaning and reason here too. We learn of the cruelty and dysfunction of the corporate world we also learn of the depth of struggle that the characters are involved in.

This is not a movie for the gone in 60 seconds generation, although they will no doubt thrill momentarily to the rampant drug use and cranial splatter that punctuates this savage tale. Schrader [who cameos in the move] delivers a characteristic humanity to the picture that lifts it high beyond b-movie status. In the hands of a lesser director Dog Eat Dog would have disappeared into a forgotten trench of hopelessness. But the man behind Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, and American Gigolo [and many more] moves in a different realm to other filmmakers. Schrader is something else. He is something special. He has said he is not a crime director, but let’s hope he makes another crime film soon, maybe something out of the Elmore Leonard oeuvre. When you see this movie you will see this happening—so clearly it might well be a prophecy from on high. Go see Dog Eat Dog today, tell ’em Crimezine sent ya. Tell ’em “I didn’t want justice, I just wanted what I wanted.”

Crimezine catches The Wannabe.

The Wannabe star Thomas, [Vincent Piazza] goes postal. Patricia Arquette recommends the Weaver stance.

Oh dear, Crimeziners. You know how excited we get when a gangster film pops off the Hollyweird production line. Plenty excited. More excited than NRA mouthpiece Wayne LaPierre waking up on xmas morning to find out that he has a big box of full-auto M16s under the xmas tree.

The fact that Mr. LaPierre gets a big box of guns under his Christmas tree every single Xmas is as existentially meaningless as the life of The Wannabe star Thomas, [Vincent Piazza] a young man whose moonish existence is consumed by dreams of becoming an associate of New York Crime boss John Gotti.

Poor Thomas. The kid is an inveterate loser with zero charm, whose delusional outlook conjures a fleeting nexus with that giant of existential psychosis Travis Bickle. Unlike De Niro’s Bickle, Thomas is a gutless bottom feeder, who quite literally pisses in his pants at the first sign of gunplay. This film is relentlessly depressing, with few—if any, redeeming moments.

That’s right Crimeziners, you are going to have to dry-swallow a handful of happy pills to make your world come good again after watching this cavalcade of doom and gloom. Based on a true story, screams the headline, as though this somehow gives the story legitimacy. Do we care? Frankly No.

The big barrel of New York gangster crime was scraped clean decades ago. The Wannabe licks hungrily at the lid of that empty barrel and the result is cinematic halitosis of a quite unappetizing variety.

Even the appearance of the gorgeous and prodigiously talented Patricia Arquette fails to raise the pulse of this flat-lining farce of a movie. The fact that she is forced throughout, to wear a wig so unlikely that not even John Travolta would be caught down the morgue in it is emblematic of the level of disaster that we are dealing with.

On the bright side, Crimeziners will be excited to note that the awesome Michael, Sopranos, Detroit 187 Imperioli is involved; but unfortunately, only in a cameo capacity. In Los Angeles this week Imperioli was in town with actor/director Nick Sandow and Vinnie Piazza to promote The Wannabe. He mumbled valiantly about Marty Scorsese and classic crime films, going to so far as to bracket Sandow in the same cinematic category. Unfortunately, that just ain’t the case.

You just know that Mean Streets and Bonnie and Clyde came up at the pitch meeting for this film; trouble is The Wannabe doesn’t come close to either. Gangsters. We love them, there used to be a time they stood for something—an outlaw breed, fierce and loyal, their lives filled with dangerous glamour—their bright and deadly career trajectory filled with excitement—something anyone who wanted it bad enough could achieve. The Wannabe tells us that is no longer possible. It tells us gangsters are no longer sexy. No one likes being told they aren’t sexy. Right Crimeziners?

Crimezine Investigates Criminal Activities with John Travolta.

John Travolta: Criminal Activities.

Criminal Activities, we love them Crimeziners, especially when John ‘Chilli Palmer’ Travolta is involved. Travolta is in full on Elmore Leonard mode for this stylish cameo. But the great man is upstaged in virtually every shot, by his heavily architecturalized hair-helmet. No matter. His crazy dialogue that references Marcel Proust, Macbeth and economic theory 101 will have you snorting so loudly you will be distracted from this spectacle, at least momentarily.

Criminal Activities is the kind of b-grade crime flick that snooty film critics love to hate, but having said that it does have a large number of redeeming features.

The Get Shorty and Usual Suspects reference points are blatant and unashamed. No bad thing. But the collage of reference points often intrudes—threatening to overwhelm the narrative thrust of the movie—drowning out its identity with a deluge of cultural cleverness.

The movie kicks off when four college buddies, Noah (Dan Stevens), Zach (Michael Pitt), Bryce (Rob Brown) and Warren (Christopher Abbott)—reunite at a friends funeral. We never get to know our four foils, but that hardly matters, because pretty soon they are talking over an insider dealing scam that is going to make them rich, rich, rich!

But things go awry, almost immediately and our heroes are in hock to mobster Eddie, played by Travolta. Eddie suggests he will offer the boys a clean slate if they kidnap the nephew of a rival gang leader, who has taken Eddie’s niece hostage.

What could be easier? Unfortunately, Marques [Edi Gathegi] is wayyyy more gangster than our hapless heroes can handle. Yikes, Crimeziners! We have got ourselves a Reservoir Dogs style hostage situation! Sadly, the second act sags as glib verbosity apes Tarantino but over-eggs the Pulp Fiction pudding and quickly descends into the realm of self-parody.

Light-relief and more than a touch of menace is offered in the form of Jackie Earle Haley as hit man Gerry, a journeyman gunsel who is about the only member of the cast who doesn’t over act his way the unfolding shenanigans.

Writer Robert Lowell is to be commended for the Keyser Söze style ending, which gooses up the third act and changes this movie out from being a run of the mill farce into an altogether more stylish mélange of crimetastic set pieces. Derivative sure, but if you dig two-fisted gangster theatrics you will love Criminal Activities.

Crimezine presents: The Spectre of Ugly Commercialism, an exclusive extract from the latest James Bond book, by Gilbert Ghost writer.

For the authentic Bond girl aroma—the sweet scent of money is unbeatable 007.

Open to panning exterior of Luxury Grupo Vidata® resort Mexico: thrill to the sight of a $20 million sponsorship deal that you too could be part of, for a low monthly fee. Grupo, inspiring generations of happiness™; for full details visit: Grupo Vidata.com.

It was one of those days when it seemed to James Bond that all life, as someone put it, was nothing but a heap of six to four against. He had just poured himself a contractually generous Belvedere vodka, [shaken not stirred] chased with a cool delicious Heineken™ [because all sophisticated international-playboy secret agents love fizzy kraut beer.] Sipping his delicious beverages, he realized that his eighty-five inch Sony® digital flat screen TV with high-contrast super-definition and picture in picture effects was on the fritz. Not to worry, he would have Q send over the Sony product placement boffins with a new one right away.

Bond turned to his Brazilian rosewood Gio Ponti desk rack, where his BOSE® surround-sound home theatre system with wireless XL30V5 speakers and Hideaway Acoustimass® module, incorporating TrueSpace® technology, was hammering out some Shirley Bassey-style tune. The song was unlistenably gruesome, penned by the latest Sony records flavor of the month hit-parade wannabe. The so-called tune was so bad it was even worse than Aha’s “The Living Daylights”. After lingering to run his fingers lovingly in close-up across several sumptuous consumer durables and cast an admiring glance across the semi-nude and still sleeping figure of Fanny Malarky—star player in the MI6 office typing pool, he remembered the Kohler™ rain-shower was still running.

Naturally, Bond’s bathroom routine was both rigorous, and extremely thorough, as marketeers had recognized the seven-figure product placement potential of such scenes and had rewritten the script accordingly.

After slipping on his Ralph Lauren silk boxers with 007 motif [Available in Harrods™ and other selected stores] He applied Mouse A Raiser shaving cream by Pour Hommes™ and pressed a hot towel to his face before unsheathing a twelve bladed Gillette Predator® razor by Proctor and Gamble™® [Multinational manufacturer of product ranges including: personal care, household cleaning, laundry detergents, prescription drugs and disposable nappies.]

Bond then utilized a generous squeeze of Greune nutrient complex natural revitalizing shampoo/conditioner containing D-panthenol and vitamin-B-complex polysorbate 80, a cleansing agent that contains natural herbs and exotic spices. He had no idea what this stuff was for; he used to get his shampoo in the dollar down discount store, but what the hell, corporate marketing had been shipping over this new shit by the truck-load—you can’t get better than free—can you?

Bond was a man who never used cologne on the face, as a Condé Nast beauty advertorial had advised against it. Instead he applied L’Oreal™ branded alcohol-free anti-bacterial toner, with a water moistened cotton ball to normalize his skin Ph levels— before applying emollient lotion and Gel Appaisant again by L’Oreal™ [“because he was worth it”.]

Bond: Shaken not stirred by commercialism. Can I get a Heineken with this barman?

Bond liked his knuckle-duster Rolex; but hadn’t worn it on screen since the mid 1970’s when a short-lived Seiko™ sponsorship deal precluded its use. Instead, he chose his “wrist close up” Omega Seamaster 300, because it was near the holiday season and would look good in glossy full page magazine adverts—providing an ideal, if somewhat expensive gift suggestion, for anyone too clueless to work out their xmas shopping ideas for themselves. [N. Peal Xmas sweaters, as worn by Daniel Craig available in the Foyer.]

Realizing the world would not save it’s self from megalomaniacal masterminds, Bond slipped in to a lightweight linen suit by Canali Milano, a cotton shirt by Ike Behar, a silk tie from the Bill Blass Collection, and cap-toed leather lace-ups from Brooks Brothers. He was about to head out the door, when he remembered he was being sponsored by Tom Ford Suits this season, so he rushed back to change. [Yes, the same Tom Ford who sells soap for $195 a pop.]

He had to hurry now; he had to fit in two car chases, a fist-fight and a dive off a snowy mountainside before lunch, not to mention a quick game of Baccarat at the Sheldon Adleson Casino Resort & Hotel™, Las Vegas. He entered the parking garage and a vicious dilemma hit him like an express train [an Amtrak grand-luxe™ American Orient train to be precise.] What car should he drive to day? Should he take the racy but yuppified Range Rover Sport SVR, or perhaps, the implausibly showy Jaguar C-X75 in douche-bag orange? Then there was his favorite, the latest Aston Martin DB10—he wanted to drive it wicked-bad. But ever since those bastards in North Korea had revealed those internal Sony emails showing he had written off $37million in Astons this year alone, those lizard-loving pricks at GEIKO™ had upped his insurance premiums to stratospheric levels. Maybe he would have to switch to State Farm®, or god forbid Triple A™. No, that was unthinkable. Those Whitehall bean-counters at MI6 would have to get on their Sony Experia 25’s and make calls. Maybe they should reconsider the $50million Samsung™ mobile phone deal?

Bond took a dry swallow of pure fear—using a non-Sony branded product on screen—the kind of crackerjack smart-phone that every nerd on the internet was laughing at? The humiliation would be…unthinkable… Still, $50 mil was $50 Mil…

To be continued next holiday season in: “James Bond, Sponsorship Is Not Enough. Crimezine thanks all relevant sponsors. Thanks also to Ian Fleming, and Brett Easton Ellis’ product placement classic, American Psycho.

Observe Mr. Bond, the latest lap gadget by Sony. Or/Is that the new Sony Laptop or are you just pleased to see me?

Crimezine has a Black Mass with Bad Grandpa

Crimezine meets George Raft, the gangster’s gangster

George Raft the gangster’s gangster

Gangsters, everybody loves them Crimeziners. But who or what is responsible for this state of affairs—the Great Depression, Prohibition, or the shoot out sensationalism of 30s and 40s Hollywood? There can be no doubt that a confluence of these notorious times led to the rise of the gangster, but one man more than any other embodied the gangster legend.

Meet George Raft, a man who lived out the fast times and dangerous glamour of the New York underworld—famed for his roles in such classic movies as Scarface, Each Dawn I Die and the 1935 adaptation of Dashiell Hammett’s Glass Key, Raft hit Hollywood by a route even more wild and compelling than that told by his success on the silver screen.

Rising out of Hell’s Kitchen New York City in the 1920’s, Raft was a smalltime boxer and baseball player, working his way through tough times anyway he knew how. He was childhood friends with many gangster legends, including Owney “the killer” Madden leader of the ruthless Gopher gang, and Benny—don’t call me Bugsy—Siegel. Always coy about his connections with the mob, Raft confessed to knowing such notorious names as Al Capone and racketeering legend Arnold Rothstein, but maintains he himself did nothing more than run bootleg liquor for the Madden mob.

A slick mover, Raft also made a mint as a dancehall lothario with pal and future screen legend Rudolph Valentino. The dance hall gigs proved a lucky break for Raft leading to a showbiz life several worlds away from his seedy gangster past. He never forgot his roots however and utilized his personal knowledge of the underworld’s most dangerous movers and shakers in his many film roles.

Now I know you are anxious to hear all the stories aren’t you Crimeziners? How Raft met Al Capone and what Capone’s verdict on the movie Scarface was? How Raft made Humphrey Bogart by turning down roles in The Maltese Falcon and High Sierra? How Raft seduced Betty Grable, Marlene Dietrich and Mae West? How despite all these affairs, and being the most sought after male lead in Hollywood he could never marry the woman he loved—how his relationship with Bugsy Siegel came back to haunt him and nearly ended his life?

Teasing Crimeziners. If you want to know all this and more, you will have to read Lewis Yablonsky’s book, George Raft. This excellent tome dishes the dirt on Raft’s crime connections, gives fascinating insights into the birth of Hollywood and the gangster movie; it also sets the social scene for these crimetastic events with perhaps the greatest gangster actor Hollywood ever saw.

So, if you want to get in at ground zero of the American gangster legend and find out how it all started, this is the book for you. The painful demise of Raft is also covered in some detail—but his death from Leukemia in 1980 is omitted Crimezine thinks it is high time for a new edition with an updated conclusion—sadly this update is unlikely, as acclaimed Sociologist Yablonsky died in 2014. Like gangsters? Buy this book today.

http://www.amazon.com/George-Raft-Lewis-Yablonsky/dp/0070722358/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

George Raft Scarface, Hollywood’s greatest gangster

Crimezine cruises with the Seven Five, the most corrupt cops in America.

Mike Dowd Dirtiest Cop In NYC

Back in the early eighties the crack and crime infested neighborhoods of South Brooklyn were devastated by poverty and urban decline. The 75^th Precinct of the NYPD covers an area of Brooklyn south of Jamaica Boulevard and it is here that we meet Michael Dowd, perhaps the most corrupt cop America has ever known.

Heists, burglary, drug-dealing, kidnapping. There was literally nothing too dirty for Mikey D. and his crew of crooked cops. These guys ruled the neighborhood, shaking down drug dealers for protection money and committing hundreds of crimes in a reign of terror that lasted more than a decade.

The Seven Five is a fast moving documentary that spotlights the remorseless rise and inevitable fall of Dowd and his thuggish friends.

The real stars of this show are the bent cops themselves—interviewed for this movie documentary, they outline in every shameless detail, the depths to which they betrayed the NYPD and the residents of South Brooklyn. Dowd comes across as a Joe Pesci style wise guy from the get go. As one of the IA cops who finally took him down relates—“I first saw him in the car park out back of the station, he didn’t look like a cop, he didn’t have a cop look. He looked like a perp.”

Needless to say, Dowd, who spent a substantial amount of time in jail for his crimes, gushes forth about the bad old days and is still full of the wise guy bullshit, he weasels and lies and makes excuses—he looks misty eyed for the lost camaraderie of his crime-ish cohorts. But make no mistake, we are dealing with a bad man here, you will be appalled, maybe even sickened, but you will also be drawn into a story that is endlessly compelling.

The interviews with Dowd and his crew are linked by retro footage, shots of the horror and squalor of South Brooklyn, a neighborhood that looks reminiscent of modern day Syria in many instances. We also get courtroom admissions from the 1993 Police corruption investigation in which Dowd confesses all. Then there are the pièce de résistance opinions of drug kingpins Adam Diaz and Baron Perez. Diaz in particular comes across as being fiendishly unrepentant. “I’m not saying I killed him he just ain’t around no more,” he drawls at one point, a derisive smirk plastered across his face.

These are bad people all right; very bad people. If you love crime you will love the Seven Five Crimeziners. It is out now for a limited cinema release, also available on cable and DVD. Check it out

http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi222933273

 

Crimezine meets the real Nightcrawler

Jake Gyllenhaal stars as Nightcrawler Lou Bloom

If it bleeds it leads Crimeziners. The new Jake Gyllenhaal flick Nightcrawler exploring the dark underbelly of the TV News freelancing industry is a must see for all crime fans.

Co-produced by Gyllenhaal, Nightcrawler is also a family day out for Bourne trilogy brothers Dan and Tony Gilroy. The gorgeous Rene Russo AKA Mrs. Dan Gilroy also stars.

Nightcrawler is filled with noirish nastiness and Gyllenhaal is hypnotic as Richard Ramirez style petty criminal and psycho Lou Bloom. As he prowls the LA night, Bloom chances upon a scene of freeway carnage and promptly decides that there is money to be made as a freelance TV news cameraman.

Bloom is as ambitious as he is unscrupulous, a mix of talents that propels him to the top of the trade at the expense of innocent bystanders. Along the way, we get very many marvelous moments, as Bloom inflicts his philosophy of self-empowerment on all and sundry—an acerbic metaphor for not only the unsavory side of media intrusion, but the voracious nature of capitalism itself.

Deep? Do not worry. There are car chases. There is gore. There is moral torment and some stunning cinematography from Robert Elswit. This tense and suspenseful movie will have your heart pumping out of your chest.

Award winning photojournalist and Crimezine chum Howard Raishbrook worked as a Consultant on this movie. Mild mannered Howard is the perfect English gentleman and the very antithesis of psycho Gyllenhaal character; but his company RMG provided valuable background for the making of the movie. Expect to see more of H coming your way soon, as the success of Nightcrawler means RMG will feature in a new reality TV show featuring a veritable carnival of vehicular misfortune and crime scene carnage. How did Gyllenhaal cultivate the Richard Ramirez style cheek-bones? According to H a regime of flavored tooth-picks, herbal-tea, and punishing ten mile runs created that effortlessly starved look. Hollyweird—it’s not all red carpets and champagne, is it Crimeziners?

Stretch: Driving Crimezine crazy in Los Angeles.

Stretch—Bad-craziness in Los Angeles Limoland

Ah, there you are Crimeziners. When was the last time you saw a really cult-tastic crime flick? A movie so trashy you wanted to ring John Waters up and wonder out loud why he doesn’t quit hitchhiking around the USA and make a really kick-ass crime film.

The good news is that Stretch is just such a movie. Packed with car chases and crazy cameos this b-movie crime romp has bar-rooms buzzing. Think Crank, Transporter, Collateral—take twenty-million-dollars off the production budget and you have Stretch.

The movie features Patrick Wilson as off-the-rails limo driver Stretch, whose career as a failed actor and inveterate gambler have led him into debt with a crew of bad assed gangsters with generically thick, You no pay I killl youuu, type accents.

Naturally, Stretch has to up his game. A year clean of booze and drugs, after his shallow squeeze Candice dumps him for the starting quarterback of the Cleveland Browns, and the pressures are piling in for the hapless limo tout. His boss hates him; the competition are out to get him and his asshole clients are —just insane.

Meet David “Baywatch” Hasselhoff, in a hilarious cameo that trumps his performance in the aforementioned Waters film, A Dirty Shame. The Hoffster plays a self-obsessed uber-self who just won’t shut up. So bad it is goooood baby.

Surely it couldn’t get any worse? Ray Liotta—proves us wrong—turning up to play a nasty parody version of himself, as actor, as gangster, as tight-tipping nightmare client, who whooops leaves his gun in the limo. It does beg the question however—Liotta—is he in every low-budget crime movie these days?

The ante is upped when Stretches limo guru buddy messily shoots himself in the head, then returns from the dead to offer mocking advice on Stretches life failings and his lack of success in paying the gangsters back.

Just when it looks like Stretch will be gunned down by the debt collectors, a new client Karos [Chris Pine] literally parachutes naked from the skies. With his wildman vagrant beard, big bag of cocaine and penchant for bad craziness of every kind, you just know that both the limo and Stretch are going to acquire the kind of damage that won’t buff-out at the drive thru valet service.

It is of course all very silly; the sort of movie that causes aficionados of “serious cinema” to break out in hives. But we don’t worry too much about them, do we Crimeziners? Such people are far too busy whining about the horrible ending of Affleck flick Gone Girl to catch a film like Stretch. Too bad for them eh?

 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFMFk5m_jS0

Kill the Messenger. Crimezine enjoys a Dark Alliance with Investigative reporter Gary Webb

Kill The Messenger the story of Gary Webb

Some stories are just too true to be told. At least this is what new movie Kill the Messenger tells us about investigative reporter Gary Webb.

But who is Gary Webb? We hear you ask. Simply put he is the man who blew the lid off the CIA plot to secretly fund the right-wing terrorist death squads in Nicaragua.

They did this, according to Webb, by importing billions of dollars of drugs and guns into inner city America, an act that was almost singularly responsible for the crack cocaine epidemic of the 1980’s

Kill the Messenger is a cinematic re-telling of the Webb story on crack cocaine and the CIA. The movie follows Webb [Jeremy Renner] in his mission to break the story of the century, it also follows the subsequent implications of “the little man” coming up against the full might of the US governments covert policy in Central America.

Crimeziners who have not heard of Gary Webb, or his book Dark Alliance should immediately follow the link below as the story is not only an astounding piece of journalism it is also one of the bravest and perhaps foolish stands against the kind of “big government” that it is currently so fashionable to criticize.

As for the movie, well this is a grim little piece of cinema. Renner is marvelous throughout, but this is not a date night movie by any stretch of the imagination. Brief cameos by Ray Liotta and Michael Sheen and Andy Garcia sadly don’t help much.

If you are a fan of politics or current events you will no doubt be familiar with the train-wreck repercussions of US government policy in Central America. You  may also be aware that Webb’s story—although widely rubbished at the time by the CIA and their establishment media puppets—has become a matter of historical record—too late for Gary Webb unfortunately, after his journalistic career was ruined by the fallout from this sensational story he was found dead in 2004. Although he had been shot twice in the head, his death was ruled a suicide.

http://www.focusfeatures.com/kill_the_messenger

http://www.amazon.com/Dark-Alliance-Contras-Cocaine-Explosion/dp/1888363932