Two indisputable things to be learned from this film: (1) Ireland does not look like it does in "The Quiet Man" and (2) Cate Blanchett has got to be one of the finest actresses around.
Dublin here resembles any large American city, with wealthy drug lords cashing in at the top, a horde of distributing goons near the bottom, and junkies on the streets, sometimes dead.
Cate Blanchett is the real Veronica Guerin, a journalist who probed too far into this subterranean system. She writes a series of articles on drug use and the vermin involved, substituting their eke names for their real ones, so she and her paper can't be sued. A ninety-caliber dealer becomes "The Monk," for instance.
The legal system is so arranged that the police have difficulty dealing with the problem and the government is able to investigate only an individual's assets for tax purposes, not the source of those assets. Thus, you can be a bus boy in a louche restaurant and no one will question it when you file a tax return for a million pounds.
Blanchett first encounters the usual deaf-and-dumb routine from her sources, then as she continues to gather data and publish them, warnings, then threats, then she is shot through the thigh, then pistol whipped, and finally shot dead.
It's astounding, the way Blanchett handles this character. She laughs off the threats from both her editors and friends and from the people she's exposing. Of course it's easy for an actor to laugh, but Blanchett laughs NERVOUSLY and gives us a glimpse of the terror behind the bravado. Not only that, but she acts SO nonchalantly in the face of danger to herself, her friends, and her family that she's able to suggest something resembling a death wish.
The story itself evidently made history in Ireland, and the requisite happy epilogue follows Guerin's murder. A special investigative board is created to prosecute heroin dealers and the law is changed so that assets may now be frozen. Some of the bad guys wind up in the slams, some on the lam.
The script has its felicities. Blanchett remarks to her editor that she now has the name of the kingpin and the editor replies, "Yes, but you can't prove it." Blanchett: "This is as bad as the police force." Editor: "Worse. We don't have the resources or the power to arrest." (Something like that.) At it's bottom, though, the plot fits rather neatly into what seems to have become a genre unto itself -- brave, resourceful, tough-talking babe pushes her way into an expose of corruption and crime. And neglects her family to carry on with her bliss. I'll just mention "Erin Brokovitch" in passing as another example. There are many others.
But I suppose there's only so much you can do with a story like this, based as it is on true events. Guerin's death was a noble tragedy by any measure, yet it prompts certain ontic questions. How much in the way of "good" must be at stake to be worth dying for? Would any normal person die in order to put away a handful of gangsters and to make drug laws more effective? I suspect that after the pistol whipping, most of us would have started a new series of newspaper articles about the social significance of different hair styles. But Veronica Guerin was different. Watching this story play out is like watching a Greek tragedy. Ennobling maybe, but pretty depressing too.
Dublin here resembles any large American city, with wealthy drug lords cashing in at the top, a horde of distributing goons near the bottom, and junkies on the streets, sometimes dead.
Cate Blanchett is the real Veronica Guerin, a journalist who probed too far into this subterranean system. She writes a series of articles on drug use and the vermin involved, substituting their eke names for their real ones, so she and her paper can't be sued. A ninety-caliber dealer becomes "The Monk," for instance.
The legal system is so arranged that the police have difficulty dealing with the problem and the government is able to investigate only an individual's assets for tax purposes, not the source of those assets. Thus, you can be a bus boy in a louche restaurant and no one will question it when you file a tax return for a million pounds.
Blanchett first encounters the usual deaf-and-dumb routine from her sources, then as she continues to gather data and publish them, warnings, then threats, then she is shot through the thigh, then pistol whipped, and finally shot dead.
It's astounding, the way Blanchett handles this character. She laughs off the threats from both her editors and friends and from the people she's exposing. Of course it's easy for an actor to laugh, but Blanchett laughs NERVOUSLY and gives us a glimpse of the terror behind the bravado. Not only that, but she acts SO nonchalantly in the face of danger to herself, her friends, and her family that she's able to suggest something resembling a death wish.
The story itself evidently made history in Ireland, and the requisite happy epilogue follows Guerin's murder. A special investigative board is created to prosecute heroin dealers and the law is changed so that assets may now be frozen. Some of the bad guys wind up in the slams, some on the lam.
The script has its felicities. Blanchett remarks to her editor that she now has the name of the kingpin and the editor replies, "Yes, but you can't prove it." Blanchett: "This is as bad as the police force." Editor: "Worse. We don't have the resources or the power to arrest." (Something like that.) At it's bottom, though, the plot fits rather neatly into what seems to have become a genre unto itself -- brave, resourceful, tough-talking babe pushes her way into an expose of corruption and crime. And neglects her family to carry on with her bliss. I'll just mention "Erin Brokovitch" in passing as another example. There are many others.
But I suppose there's only so much you can do with a story like this, based as it is on true events. Guerin's death was a noble tragedy by any measure, yet it prompts certain ontic questions. How much in the way of "good" must be at stake to be worth dying for? Would any normal person die in order to put away a handful of gangsters and to make drug laws more effective? I suspect that after the pistol whipping, most of us would have started a new series of newspaper articles about the social significance of different hair styles. But Veronica Guerin was different. Watching this story play out is like watching a Greek tragedy. Ennobling maybe, but pretty depressing too.