Based on a real-life story, Veronica Guerin showcases the Irish journalist who exposed how easily the Irish mob trafficked drugs throughout Dublin. In pursuing the gangs, she was ultimately killed on the orders of the chief drug lord in 1996. Whether Veronica Guerin (who wrote for Dublin’s Sunday Independent) was a good journalist isn’t really the point of the film, but the movie seems to make her out to be a martyr who is fueled more by selfish showmanship than really trying to uncover the truth. Since her assassination is shown at the beginning of the film before it flashes back to the events that led to her death, we already know how the story will end, but Cate Blanchett’s portrayal of Guerin makes it seem inevitable that the lead character will die.
Her cause is obviously just-our sympathies are played upon early on with a scene of Guerin walking though the syringe-littered landscape of a housing project, where youth are being exploited by the mob to distribute drugs. Anyone would be bothered by the sight of a toddler with a used syringe trying to imitate the injection methods of his heroin-abusing neighbors. However, Guerin acts like an annoying smart-aleck who is constantly cracking wise, almost begging for an applause for her theatrics. In a scene where she marches right up to the doorstep of the drug kingpin, she seems to be asking for a death warrant on her head. Certainly, exposing the gritty truth takes determination and sacrifice. Getting death threats from the mob-understandable, it comes with the job. But the viewer is left wondering if the Guerin character should go so far as to constantly ignore the advice of her patient husband and co-workers-she’s putting their lives in jeopardy as well.
Director Joel Schumacher applies his usual gloss to the proceedings-the film looks great, all steely greys and cool tones-and moves briskly like a good thriller. But this is, as the opening titles ostentatiously point out, a Jerry Bruckheimer presentation. And like most Bruckheimer productions, things quickly take a turn for the overblown and the obvious, leaving very little room for Blanchett to do the kind of subtle work that she’s quite capable of. The audience keeps waiting to get a sense of what drives this woman, but all we get is an magnified myth.
Of course, this is just a movie, and we do need to distinguish between the real Veronica and the character played by Cate Blanchett. Veronica Guerin’s death sped up Ireland’s fight against drugs, instantly driving the gangs and their trade underground. Her untimely demise forced the government to introduce new laws and programs that actively pursued suspected drug dealers. But while Veronica Guerin the movie has been a huge hit in Ireland, where the audience knows and remembers the titular character as a great heroine, here in North America, all audiences really know is what the movie shows them. And in that respect, the film does its subject a great disrespect. The movie’s tagline reads: “Why would anyone want to kill Veronica Guerin?” This film suggests that the reasons are pretty obvious.
