Veronica Guerin

What a woman she was! Let's start off with good points. I think this movie had a great cast. I think everyone was perfect. The problem probably comes with the filmmakers being American. I'm an American so I think I'm qualified to say this. Sometimes you need to be from the same culture to understand subtle and cultural things that are not evident to the naked eye so to speak. The movie somehow doesn't delve deep enough for us to understand why Guerin takes these incredible risks. Perhaps we should have learned more about her background to understand this unflinching courage she had. It may have also been beneficial to make the underworld figures she encounters more layered. Either way, it is a good introductory film to this incredible woman. Perhaps a homespun filmmaker can make another movie about her. I reiterate that I thought the casting was terrific! Cate Blanchett is one in a million. I felt her performance was oscar caliber.

Veronica Guerin is a film about an Irish journalist who put a story ahead of the welfare of her child and husband, as well as above her own life. There are two primary views about her decisions in the film. One is that she was unbelievably courageous and really believed that good always overcomes evil. That justice will always prevail. That one sometimes has to sacrifice one's self for the good of the many. Veronica Guerin thought she could make a difference. She thought the police were doing everything they could to stop the drug trafficking in Dublin. This is the positive view. The other view is that Veronica Guerin was incredibly naive, careless, and insensitive to the needs of her child and husband. That she thought she was a police detective without a gun and was above reproach from criminals. And while the film paints a pretty picture of Dublin's and Ireland's police completely turning around its drug problem, nothing could be further from the truth. There is still a tremendous drug problem in Dublin and in all of Ireland, not to mention the rest of the world. Nothing has really changed. Like all wars, the victims of the War Against Drugs, or any other war, are soon forgotten after noble words at a funeral. That's when everyone goes back to their everyday lives. So which version of Veronica Guerin is correct? That decision would be up to the viewer. And why did Colin Farrell get billing on IMBD as a co-star? He was in the film for two minutes (or less). Talk about a disappearing career. Good movie, though.

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.

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.

Veronica Guerin is the kind of journalist I could never, ever be, if I choose to go into that field in the future. She was determined, ballsy, hard-nosed, a risk-taker, and instilled with a bravado that bordered on irrationality. This movie is based on the true story of how Guerin, an Irish reporter, galvanized her country into implementing stricter drug laws and cracking down on drug-related crimes and drug abuse. Veronica Guerin paints her as a modern day Joan of Arc - misunderstood by peers and politicians while she was alive, but made a martyr and heroine after her death. It spans a period of two years, from Guerin's decision to take down Dublin's drug overlord, to her eventual assassination. (I'm not revealing any secrets - she's shot at the beginning before the movie flashes back). Guerin's tenacious reporting-style - poking, prodding, nudging friends and foes alike - was effective, albeit often treacherous - there had been previous attempts on her life before the final, fatal one. It is this that critics pick on in their reviews: Guerin's almost insane tendency to provoke known criminals and gangsters to the point of immediate danger to herself and her family. While it would be somewhat implausible if this were a fictitious story, the story of Veronica Guerin is a true one. Having not read her biography, I have no idea how much the filmmakers have embellished on it, but I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. With the picture they painted of Guerin, as well as Cate Blanchett's wonderful portrayal of her, I believe that Guerin, in her passion-fuelled moral crusade, would have been that compulsive, and ultimately, that heroic.

As much as I loved the story of Veronica Guerin, crusading journalist, I have some bones to pick with the technical aspects of the movie. One is with the director's tendency to suddenly go into "Blair Witch Cam," or hand-held cam, for those of you who haven't been nauseated by that movie. It's intended to give the movie a documentary feel, but the sudden switches to from fixed to hand-held cams just leave me dizzy. Another problem I had, though a smaller one, was with the schmaltzy-ing of certain scenes, especially the last one, where Celtic songs are played in the background. While I understand the reverrence intended and the relevance of playing Celtic music, I couldn't stop images of the Titanic and Sarah McLachlan (I don't know either) from appearing in my head. A suitably solemn, well-composed, non-Celtic piece would've been much more preferable. But that's just me. 9/10