Veronica Guerin
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Movie Reviews of Veronica Guerin
Movie Review: Breathtaking....
Summary: 5 Stars
This movie describes the life of Irish reporter Veronica Guerin who believed in exposing people for what they were and nothing less...She had passion, spunk, and absolute bravery...
Against the wishes of those she loved, she pursued her ambitions to uncover the drug dealers in Ireland and she paid the ultimate price for it, her life.
Movie Review: She died doing what we all know we should
Summary: 5 Stars
This was a great movie. I believe every adult should see it; I have it in my home and recommend it to any adult wanting to borrow a movie. This woman tried to make the world a better place and she was murdered for it. I will never forget her name.Movie Review: Beautifully Done
Summary: 5 Stars
This story stayed with me for days - I even bought the CD as the music is so wonderful. Fabulous acting (Kate Blanchett is stellar), artistically directed - an all 'round FIVE STAR movie!Movie Review: An Important Film
Summary: 5 Stars
A very important film for Ireland. Cate Blanchett's acting is impeccable, her accent near perfect. The film is very accurate yet very entertaining. Go and see it.Movie Review: Cate Blanchett as the infamous murdered Irish journalist
Summary: 4 Stars
On the off chance that you do not know what this film is about, "Veronica Guerin" begins with the title character surviving a court date for parking and speeding tickets before her car is stopped at a light and two guys come along side on a motorcycle and knock out her window with a gun. The actual assassination comes later, but clearly Veronica Guerin (Cate Blanchett) is going to get blown away, so when the film fades to black and we then find ourselves two years earlier, we understand that we will learn what who wanted this reporter dead and why. In case we do not understand, there is a fair amount of background details provided on screen. For an American audience, at least, this 2003 film fits into an established genre, in which an intrepid reporter fights to get the story. What is more difficult to appreciate is that when Guerin was killed in 1996 she was the first journalist murdered in Ireland. That makes a difference because even though in this film Guerin is motivated by a mixture of outrage over young kids doing drugs and the desire to make a name as a journalist, one of the other defining elements is that she is rather reckless. Even after she is shot, in the most serious of the early warnings for her to stop investigating the Dublin drug trade, you still have the feeling that she does not think anybody will go so far as to kill her. Not because of the repercussions for crossing that line but more because nobody has ever done so before. Indeed, before she is killed the worst thing that happens to her is not the savage beating administered by the drug kingpin, John Gilligan (Gerard McSorley), but rather his unveiled threat as to what he will do to her son.
Still, it is possible to read Guerin's culpability in her own death as being due more to naivatee rather than any act of hubris, even though dismissing her police guard was obviously not a smart move. Certainly family and business associates both try to disuadde her from from courting danger, but we know they do not make movies about reporters who give up, so Joel Schumacher's film is going to play out this drama to the end. There are also aspects of libel laws in Ireland that force nicknames to be used for the major criminal figures, that have to be taken into account because it means having your name in the paper means something quiet different over there. But still, our expectations for this genre overwhelm the unique qualities of this particular story, which gets played out by the numbers, including the requisite epilogue that serves to enumerate why Guerin's death was not in vain. This is a good film, but given its subject matter you have to think it should have been more inspiring.
One of the interesting aspects of this film from a cinematic perspective is that we have seen some of the characters and the story before. Martin Cahill (Gerry O'Brien), the infamous "General" of Guerin's stories is the subject of John Boorman's 1994 film "The General," with Brendan Gleeson as Cahill. Then there is John Mackenzie's 2000 film "When the Sky Falls," which fictionalizes this story as that of Sinead Hamilton, played by Joan Allen. It seems "Veronica Guerin" is the least regarded of the three, which speaks well for the other two films (which I intended to view shortly) in that this film is pretty good. Blanchett's performance as Guerin is solid enough, and if she lost out on an Oscar nomination it might be because votes for her were split between this film and "The Missing."