Veronica Guerin

Cate Blanchett has done it again - played someone you can't take your eyes off of, and not because she's a classic beauty but she's just a good actress and plays such intense roles. Here, she's the single-minded outraged Irish reporter out to expose the drug trafficking in Ireland in the mid 1990s. Yes, it's based on a real person, a very real Veronica Guerin, who took her life in her hands with her desire to have this problem taken care off so the kids in her country wouldn't have such easy access to harmful drugs.

According to the film story, the drug problem was ignored or the police were just ineffective in dealing with it, so Guerin goes after the mob as an investigative reporter. Her husband pleads with her to stop, knowing she could easily be killed. The gangsters were tough and realistically portrayed on film. There is no talk-now-shoot-later nonsense. You mess with them, you will pay. That's the message they give Guerin and you'll have to see the film to find out what happened.

Yup, this is an attention-getter from the start and especially with Blanchett in the lead. A good story and highly recommended.

Back in the 1990s, I recall reading news articles about a feisty journalist who was writing stories about the drug problems in Dublin. Occasionally, I'd see another article, and was impressed by the strength and character of the writer. Then, in 1996, I read a long magazine story about Veronica Guerin and how she died.

So, this is a movie I really wanted to see...

Joel Schumacher has produced/directed many good movies, and this one must come near the top for me.

There is no preaching, no histrionics, no proselytizing, no hype – just a relatively short account of how this woman decided to do something about the kids dying in the streets, and about the difficulties she faced in trying to get authorities to stem, or stop, the flow of drugs into the city. Just an ordinary woman who did the extraordinary...

The cinematography of the dirty streets and kids is gritty, as you would expect, contrasting very well with the opulence enjoyed by the major drug pushers of the upper establishment in the Dublin area.

The violence – and there's plenty of it – is short, sharp, vicious and all too realistic: when one drug gang eliminates another, when an informer is tortured, when Veronica is subjected to the most savage personal beating I've seen on film, and when she is finally assassinated.

Couple all of that with a performance by Blanchett worthy of an Oscar, closely followed by Gerard McSorley as John Gilligan, whose evil must be seen to fully appreciate the performance of this fine actor, and rounded off with Ciaran Hinds as John Traynor, who simply excels in his performance as the slime-ball to end all slime-balls – and you have a film that keeps you riveted to your seat, wondering how is it that one person can be so brave in the face of such depravity.

It's a very depressing film because you know what is coming, you know that a horrible death comes as the end. But, it is also an uplifting story that proves, beyond measure, that good people can prevail against the bad elements that exist in all societies, even though some do pay the ultimate price.

If there is one movie you see this year, see this one.

The assassination of Dublin crime reporter Veronica Guerin in 1996 shook Ireland to the core, her murder saw a public swell of determination to rid the country of its drug peddlers. Joel Schumacher's film is an in depth interpretation of the woman, her beliefs, her family life, her complexities and her stoicism to root out the drug barons putting liquid death into the arms of the many.

Thankfully avoiding Hollywood clichés, it's often gritty and well thought out, Schumacher and his writers, Carol Doyle and Mary Agnes Donoghue, don't soft soap the Guerin image, her faults are laid bare alongside her searing strengths. The dangers of her work are very prominent throughout, leading to some suspenseful and fearsome scenes. Cate Blanchett as Guerin is inspired casting, an actress capable of covering all facets of the human condition, and in support Ciaran Hinds, Gerard McSorley and Brenda Fricker give powerful performances. 8/10

I've been revaluing Joel Schumacher as a director for some years. I was used to think he was just a typical Hollywood movie maker. But I understood this man does commercial features whenever he needs money ("Batman forever", "Batman & Robin", "The client", "A time to kill"), as he gets it he manages to do good and more personal films.

In fact his mainstream movies are quite boring and mannered. Fortunately Schumacher is much better with more alternative or low-budget films ("Falling down", "Tigerland", "Phone booth"). "Veronica Guerin" belongs to this category.

I'm also happy, in this case, that a blockbuster producer like Jerry Bruckheimer manages not to spoil the movie with artificial tricks.

Veronica Guerin seems to me a symbol of Irish tragicalness. I mean, the tragicalness you can find in works of James Joyce and Oscar Wilde, in stories and legends of Ireland as well. Sadly, her story is true.

The film has the right speed in presenting all the facts, it is simple and well acted -Cate Blanchett's performance is outstanding.

Maybe Joel Schumacher, in the final part, looses a little the sense of rhythm because he wants us to be moved and touched (and we are, indeed. Because it's a shame that a woman and a brave journalist as well had to pay that price). But it's a true story, as I said. The film is valid because it denounces the "conspiracy of silence" and inaction from authorities.

Just as Veronica Guerin exposed Ireland's underworld drug dealers, Cate Blanchett's marvelous portrayal of Irish journalist-turned-anti-drug-crusader Veronica Guerin seemed to have the actress on a mission to prove that you don't have to look like a pop diva or act like a porn star to be a compelling female lead in a film.

Like many films with an ethnic flavor, we get a supporting cast of ethnic actors in slightly elevated roles from the norm. Most notable from that category are Gerard McSorley as the evil drug-lord, John Gilligan, and Ciaran Hands as street thug John Traynor, who plays both sides of the fence throughout the film.

The story is painful, not only because of what happens to Guerin, but in our knowing that her courage is a direct reaction to our general apathy towards wrongdoing, with so many of us looking the other way that the Veronica Guerins of the world are encouraged to fight evil after the fact, but left as sitting ducks or thrown to the wolves while they are still alive and making noise.

If there's one lesson every viewer of this film should exit with, it is that those of us who are not part of the solution, are part of the problem.