Veronica Guerin

Rating:
Summary: compelling tale of a true life martyr
Review: A bit like an Irish version of "Silkwood," "Veronica Guerin" is the true-life tale of a woman who was shot down in cold blood for daring to do the right thing. No martyr by intent, Guerin was a Dublin newspaper journalist who, sickened by what she saw happening to the youth of her country at the hands of drug dealers and petty gangsters, wrote damning exposes of this criminal underworld in her columns, at great personal risk to her family and herself. For that, Guerin ended up paying the ultimate price, but the city in which she lived and worked became a better place for her sacrifice.

Producer Jerry Bruckheimer and director Joel Schumacher have wisely opted to tamp down their normally hurdy-gurdy filmmaking style, taking instead a straightforward, streamlined, almost too conventional an approach to the story. This seems appropriate since the material itself is so compelling that any attempt to gussy it up with hyped-up editing techniques and high tech flash would be both dishonest to the facts and disrespectful to the woman at its core. Cate Blanchett does a superb job inhabiting this character, displaying all the moral tenacity and hardheaded feistiness necessary to make us understand why Guerin does what he does. The risk with a character like Guerin is that she will come across as too saintly on screen, but Blanchett and the filmmakers are careful to keep her life-sized and down-to-earth at all times. In addition to her courage, idealism and inextinguishable determination to do what's moral and right, we also get to see her less admirable traits such as her abrasiveness and recklessness, as well as her most humanizing trait of all: her fear. This allows the character to be both heroic and real at the same time.

There are excellent supporting performances from Gerald McSorley, Carian Hinds and Brenda Flicker, as well as a rather pointless cameo appearance by Colin Farrell, whose name does not even appear in the final credits. This sudden, unexpected appearance of a major star amidst this generally unfamiliar cast of first-rate character actors succeeds only in undercutting the verisimilitude of the piece.

Rating:
Summary: An Important Film
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: A very realistic and, from what I have read of her life and murder, an extremely true to life movie. Parts of it are quite violent but then that is part of the realism. Parts of the movie are also very poignant, focusing our minds on the tragedy of the murder of this fine journalist. Cate Blanchett's Irish accent almost had me thinking she was Irish.

Rating:
Summary: breakthrough
Review: Above all, this is a movie about Ireland. It deals with the breakthrough in the ways of fighting drugs crime in this country. Unfortunately first a well-known lady-journalist has to be murdered to set off public indignation, and to get authorities moving.

Having been in Ireland myself many times, I clearly recognize the way things are done in this country. By the way, the shots of Dublin & surroundings are fine, too.

However, I think Cate Blanchett's acting less convincing. In her fight against drugs crime she does not fully transmit the drive and idealism the real Veronica Guerin must have had. This movie-VG acts like some 21st-century Clint Eastwood in an Irish setting.

Rating:
Summary: THE MAGNIFICENT CATE
Review: CATE BLANCHETT is a marvelous actress, one whose dexterity in playing any kind of role (e.g. THE GIFT), will one day elevate her to the Meryl Streep class of actress.
Cate's overwhelming portrayal of journalist Veronica Guerin is nothing but brilliant, and she was sadly overlooked by Oscar, who usually eats up this kind of performance. Even though she won no award, Blanchett infuses Veronica Guerin with a smoldering passion, a strong sense of commitment and perseverance, and a loving mother and wife, whose actions endanger all of them, but she sticks to it. Cate has so many moments of excellence, one can't really elucidate on them without going on and on; suffice to say, Cate is magnificent.
Director Joel Schumacher leaves his action film techniques behind and crafts an envigorating yet sad film. Blanchett is supported by a tremendous cast: Gerard McSorney as John Gilligan is one of the most vile characters on celluloid and McSorney's performance is frightening and powerful. The scene where he attacks Veronica and beats her to a pulp is one of the most disturbing scenes I've witnessed in a long time. Ciaran Hinds (SUM OF ALL FEARS) is brilliant as Veronica's informant and eventual executioner. One can see how he is torn and yet remains selfish enough to save his own hide. Don Wycherley as police inspector Chris Mulligan hits the right note of being a good policeman and friend to the controversial Guerin; Brenda Fricker in a small role as Veronica's mother is good in a controlled, yet highly emotive performance; Barry Barnes as Veronica's husband is strong, supportive, yet frustrated at the possibility of losing his wife; Paudge Behan as the self proclaimed stud Barry is chilling in a small, yet effective performance; and of course, in a cameo role, Schumacher favorite Colin Farrell plays a tattooed young man whose one brief scene establishes the humanity of Guerin.
VERONICA GUERIN doesn't really give us the whole story, but Cate Blanchett gives us her entire being in a riveting, gut-wrenching performance.
Highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Another star in Cate Blanchett's impressive repertoire
Review: Despite the media's devastatingly misjudged reviews of VERONICA GUERIN the film is so fine that it will survive by word of mouth. Joel Schumacher understands this type of story - in this case a true stroy of an Irish reporter's murder due to her indomitable fight to expose the Drug Lords of Dublin. He makes us face the ugly aspects of the drug underworld and its pitiful victims, yet he also knows how to harness the audience reaction to drive home a point. If anything this film is a fine example, like TRAFFIC, of calling attention to a true international crisis - drugs with the associated greed of those perpetrating their use and the devastating effect on our youth, our citizery, our cities, our future. Bravo to Joel Schumacher for his ongoing drive to make the grimy things public.

But kudos are definitely in order for the entire cast of this film. Cate Blanchett in the title role has carefully studied the woman on whose life this is based and in doing so she is able to give a performance that is deeply felt, sensitively portrayed, and a complete pleasure to watch AND hear! The cast supporting her includes such fine talents as Brenda Fricker, Ciaran Hinds, Gerard McSorley and even Colin Farrell in a tiny cameo role. Farrell's appearance, despite its brevity, has a solid impact and seems more than an homage to Joel Schumacher who gave his his first major role in TIGERLAND.

The cinematography captures Dublin and the countryside of Ireland in all its rainy, grimy beauty and the musical score is hauntingly appropriate. As the public responds en masse to the funeral procession of Veronica Guerin there is a sense of the Argentinian response to the death of Evita Peron - a country paying tribute to a heroine. Give this film a chance, tells your friends to see it - the message and quality of VERONICA GUERIN is that good.

Rating:
Summary: Sticking out a tongue at evil men
Review: Four and a half stars, actually.

VERONICA GUERIN is based on real events. It's the second screen telling of the story, the first being WHEN THE SKY FALLS (2000) starring Joan Allen.

In this version, Cate Blanchett stars in the title role as the Dublin journalist on Ireland's leading newspaper, who takes it as her personal mission to expose the burgeoning drug trade in the mid-1990's. Her stubborn probing brings her onto the radar of some very hard and violent men, in particular one John Gilligan (Gerard McSorley). Guerin persists despite escalating threats and violence to her person. It's a matter of public record that she was gunned down in her car on June 26, 1996 while waiting at a traffic light, the depiction of which assassination is initiated during the first few minutes of the film.

VERONICA GUERIN is a revelation. Call it naivete, but I never suspected that Ireland had such a vicious and violent drug problem. I mean, didn't St. Patrick drive out the snakes?

Cate Blanchett is perhaps one of the very best dramatic actresses in film today. She doesn't just act her role, she becomes one with it. She is the single best reason to see this movie, and the reason that I'm giving 4.5 stars to an otherwise 3-star production. But why not five?

Blanchett's Guerin persona is glamorous, exuberant, witty, and flirtatious - I think I'm in love. However, I've the sneaking suspicion that the scriptwriters embellished the personality of the murdered reporter to make it play better to the audience. If they did, they'd no good reason to have done so since Veronica's two-year battle against drug dealing scum is by itself a front-page story of incredible heroism - or incredible foolishness. Perhaps the world would be a better place had it more of such fools.

I intend to rent WHEN THE SKY FALLS for a different perspective. Joan Allen is another extraordinary talent, but she doesn't have the glamour that might otherwise skew a necessarily gritty and tragic story.

It's a shame that VERONICA GUERIN played in my local theaters for so short a period. Blanchett's performance may very well earn her an Oscar nomination for best actress.

Rating:
Summary: Shumacher's done worse
Review: Guerin has good acting, but it is a little too slow. The story is interesting, but drags on. I had to put on subtitles because I didnt understand the Irish accent.

Rating:
Summary: pretty long (but coherent) rant.
Review: I just saw "Veronica Guerin" on DVD last week, and was blown away with it, and then horribly disappointed by the truly dismal reviews I found of it online. It bothered me immensely why the film sparked such a reaction. Eventually I had to sit down and try to figure out why this happened.

These are the reasons I have come up with for the critical responses.

1. The jaded attitude of some critics. When "Whale Rider" came out last summer, many people applauded it for the fact that it touched even the most hardened and savvy viewers; but let's face it, a movie which stars an impressively gifted little girl and a bunch of whales will touch a person with much more ease than a movie about the drug trade. (And don't get me wrong, I adore "Whale Rider".)

2. I sense a certain amount of poorly-hidden discomfort in many reviews I've read. A sort of ... defensiveness. Partly for the above reason: jaded people don't like to be touched by things, but a movie like "Veronica Guerin" is, in my opinion, the kind of movie they most don't want to like. Not only does it take a moral attitude towards something, but it depicts the criminal world in a way which can easily be seen as cliche ... though I have to wonder .... how many of these critics actually know what the criminal world is like? All movies involve a certain amount of cliche, otherwise they wouldn't be movies. Fiction rests on cliche, even in the most sparing amounts, because it simply is not real. So yes: no doubt the way the world of the criminals in "Veronica Guerin" is depicted owes much to a certain amount of stylization, just as all aspects of every movie do. I suppose because it's a subject which is supposed to be so reliant on reality that some are so sensitive to it. But I think the high-handed tone of many critics on this subject is frankly a little laughable; as I said, how much do these people know about criminals? Not much, I doubt. It's harder to accept cliche on this subject than it is on others, I suppose.

3. And, as I said, the movie is very moralistic. Many people don't like to be told "This is wrong" (even if they agree that it probably is). In the climate which "Veronica Guerin" arrived in, I think people especially were sick to death of being told "This is wrong", for, er, obvious reasons of a political nature.

4. Two words: Joel Schumacher. The man everyone loves to hate. But let me tell you: if you listen to his commentary for the movie, there's no way to deny that he knew exactly what he was doing when he made this movie; he was immensely well-versed in the subject, and not only that, but formed a rare bond with Veronica's family which gives the film a genuiness which many biopic-themed films lack. Everytime I see a review in which the critic whines, "We don't get to meet Veronica in this film. We don't learn anything about her as a person," I think of how her family reacted to the movie and know that they certainly felt that the movie presented Veronica as a very real and psychologically complex person. I think of the really wonderful scene in the hospital after she's been shot in the leg and is clearly in shock and keeps trying to hide it (though of course, remember, Roger Ebert, in his ten minute long analysis of the picture, puts this performance down to Guerin's OBVIOUS out-of-control egotism). And I can only conclude that people went into the film disliking Joel Schumacher and not prepared to like the product no matter what.

5. And finally, there is a reason which has to do with Veronica's status as a journalist which I think plays a role in this.

I detect a very important strain in this movie which most people hasn't seem to comment on. And that is that I feel there is a very strong indictment against the modern global media in here. I know that, watching the news this morning I felt a new sort of disgust for the whole way it was handled, in light of the film.

Veronica Guerin was an exceptional journalist. Yes, she was a brave person, and that was part of it. Yes, she was sometimes foolish in her pursuit of a story (more on that later). She is, to put it simply, the type of journalist we should have more of. And which we most certainly don't.

In the making of documentary on the DVD, one of Veronica's colleagues - the real person, not the actor who plays him in the movie - described her as NOT the kind of reporter who sat around in an office, waiting for a press release, waiting to be told a bunch of spin. And yeah, the immediate reaction to that is "No duh!" We certainly saw that in the movie. It was, in fact, pushed in our face. But when you really dwell on it, it's kind of depressing. Because how many other journalists can you say that about? I can only think of a few, and none of them are working now. Sitting around in an office waiting for a press release IS how most journalists operate. It's incredibly unmotivated and incredibly useless, really. I've followed threads in OIT where we were following a developing story and people posted link to article after article and was stunned by how every one sounded so much the same. Didn't matter what news agency. Didn't matter what COUNTRY. The media just seems to sit around, retyping what others have said. It's safe news reporting. There's a time and a place for this but there's a time and a place when someone actually has to get some balls and do something.

We look at someone like Veronica Guerin and think "She was brave but she was stupid. WHY did she do this?" And I think this anger is understandable but totally misplaced. Don't be angry at Veronica. Be angry at the people who did it. Once again that sounds like an obvious conclusion, but look at the elements behind such a statement. The people who murdered her were, to put it mildly, out of control. They were so in love with themselves, with their petty wants and desires, with their extravagant way of living, that they felt that preserving these things was worth someone else's life. When they use this type of approach by killing people the slow way - i. e. by feeding addictions and taking advantage of people in poverty - no one's shocked. They don't approve of it but it's something that happens. When someone like Veronica is murdered, there's a different reaction. The selfishness of such an act is a bit more apparent. But there isn't any difference.

That above reaction to her murder seems to have been the presiding feeling right after her death, the atmosphere that ushered in the creation of the CAB and the rewriting of the constitution. But the reaction which has greeted the film, which, from what I've read, appears to have begun to become prevalent years ago, possibly with the publication of Emily O'Neill's biography of Guerin, is different. There seems to be a blaming of Veronica. Sort of like "She asked for it." She should have known when to stop. She was careless for endangering herself and her family. She was too single-minded, she neglected her own safety and the people who loved her in the pursuit of this story.

And you know what that reminds me of? It reminds of when comfortably elite people say of drug addicts who get murdered or die from their addictions, "They were stupid. They shouldn't have been involved. They asked for it." Anger that is misplaced. Anger that should be directed at the people doing the killing, the people who are taking advantage of others; anger that should be used in stopping these people.

It's the same sort of misplacement which accompanies the reaction to Veronica and to the movie, though most people don't realize that there isn't a difference.

We need people Veronica Guerin. People like her have kept the rest of us safe, or at least tried to, from the beginning of time. We can't understand how these people can do what they do, and maybe there's a little bit of resentment which arises from this fact. I don't know. I don't completely understand it myself.

Guerin wasn't a saint. The movie doesn't depict her as such, which some reviewers seemed to have overlooked. But her faults don't lessen her achievments, and the mere fact that she was willing to go a distance which most of us can't imagine going doesn't make her stupid or insane. It doesn't make her perfect. It does make her someone worthy of respect, and I think the movie was also worthy of respect, a lot more than it got.

And yeah, Cate Blanchett? Definitely screwed by Oscar.

Rating:
Summary: Blanchett Shines in an Otherwise Drab Film
Review: I sat down to watch VG last night with no expectations and very little information about the film or the subject, only having seen a trailer or two and knowing that the classy and beautiful Cate Blanchett was the star. I knew that I was in trouble when the words, "Directed by Joel Schumacher" flashed up in the credits--as in, the man who destroyed the Batman franchise with blacklit motorcycle gangs and a [appealing] batsuit.

Neither Blanchett or Schumacher disappointed. Blanchett was brilliant, and Schumacher was terrible. The storytelling in the film followed a basic chronology, and failed to captialize on the great emotional depth of Guerin's struggle with journalistic integrity over self-interest. Some of the most intensely emotional moments are glossed over in favor of multiple angle transitional shots of Guerin's red sportscar zipping through the countryside.

It was getting late as I watched this, and after about an hour of slogging along through Schumacher's shabby storytelling, began to fast forward the DVD to get to the conclusion. The only thing that makes this vulgar and violent film remotely watchable is Blanchett. Even the "coda" section that describes the positive measures that VG's work precipitated is done in an unenthusiastic, disinterested voiceover. Without Blanchett's excellent performance, no one would have noticed this film, which is troubling considering that it is a tribute to a courageous journalist.

Speaking of the real VG, there is some nice archival footage of her speaking at an awards banquet. Strangely, the parallel scene in the film is the one deleted scene included on the disc. Chalk it up to another bad directorial decision.