Veronica Guerin
‘Veronica Guerin’ is, without a doubt, one of the best films I’ve ever seen. I went to see it with my mind tuned to cynical mode, but dammit, I can only fault it for one thing. More on that one thing later.
Everyone in Ireland is overly cynical. Oh, sorry, didn’t mean to put a full stop there- everyone in Ireland is overly cynical about essentially Irish films produced by Americans. Images of the IRA and bad brogues come to mind. Stereotypes come to mind. But not this one.
Okay, so what is this damn film about anyway? ‘Veronica Guerin’ is about a journalist (I dare you to guess her name) working for the Sunday Independent. A journalist especially interested in the world of business. In the business that makes more Irish money than Guinness does every year- heroin. And this film is based on a true story, on the events that took up most of the news over here between 1994 and 1996.
Basically, Veronica was killed on the 26th of June, 1996. She was killed because she took it all too far. She started messing with the dealers, she was about to name and shame them, so they killed her. Well, one gang leader killed her. There were a lot of gangs. It wasn’t like she had no warnings, she was shot in the leg, beaten up, threatened… this evil guy called John Gilligan threatened to ‘kidnap her son and ride him’, yet she didn’t stop. So she killed her self, basically. Everyone moans at me when I say that, ‘Oh, no she wasn’t, she was brave, blah de blah…’ Brave? She had everything to lose and nothing to gain. Except the satisfaction of ‘nabbing the story’. Yeah, I’d rather not get the story and save my life thanks. She got neither. She was a brilliant journalist, I look up to her in that respect, but she was stupid. You don’t mess with any heroin dealers, and especially not these guys. The editor of the newspaper told her to stop, but she didn’t. Her mother told her to stop, and so did her husband. But out of all these people you would think that she would at least listen to the gang leaders with guns in their hands. And that’s why she was eventually shot dead (to an ear piercingingly awful rendition of ‘The Fields of Athenry’ in the movie, but probably not in real life).
Cate Blanchett played Veronica, and damn that woman, I can’t even fault her on the accent. Meh. I hope she gets an Oscar, but she probably won’t because I’m fully convinced that the Oscar panel is a group of (uncharacteristically) stupid chimpanzees. Am fully maddened that Australian can do better Dublin accent than me.
Half the cast was instantly recognisable as ‘Glenroe’ (rural Irish soap, no longer running, by- product of ‘Bracken’, the show that launched Gabriel Byrne) and ‘Fair City’ (urban soap, still running) actors. And almost everyone else was familiar too. Even Colin Farrell turned up for a few minutes. I wanted to give his character a hug actually, he was cute.
One good thing came of Veronica’s death- the Criminal Assets Bureau. This was set up to check out any wealth of suspicious origins. But the heroin situation in Dublin has got worse, in all fairness. There’s this relatively new monument in O’Connell Street called ‘The Spire’… but it’s been nicknamed ‘The Spike’ because it resembles a heroin needle and people say that it represents Dublin’s heroin problem. It’s not just Dublin though, there’s a lot of junk in Cork as well, and Limerick also has a problem at the moment. And cocaine is a problem now too, thanks to the Celtic Tiger. And of course hash, which kills brain cells. I’m sick of telling that to my friends that smoke marijuana though, let them become stupid, that’s their problem. So it’s not like Veronica solved the drug crisis or anything. She was just unlucky/ stupid enough to get tangled in it.
It said, at the end of the film, that everyone remembers where they were when they heard that Veronica Guerin had been killed on the Naas Road. Amazingly (and I say that because I don’t remember much, and I was only nine at the time), I remember that I was playing with Jimmy in the kitchen when a newsflash came on the radio. I’m the only one out of my friends who remembers where they were. *is proud*
Great film though, honestly, I really recommend it. Go see it.
Oh, and the one fault? Yeah, well whenever they showed an RTÉ newsflash, they used the style of bulletin that is used nowadays. The style that has only been around these last few years. So there.
Yeah, I was really desperate for something to fault.
Everyone in Ireland is overly cynical. Oh, sorry, didn’t mean to put a full stop there- everyone in Ireland is overly cynical about essentially Irish films produced by Americans. Images of the IRA and bad brogues come to mind. Stereotypes come to mind. But not this one.
Okay, so what is this damn film about anyway? ‘Veronica Guerin’ is about a journalist (I dare you to guess her name) working for the Sunday Independent. A journalist especially interested in the world of business. In the business that makes more Irish money than Guinness does every year- heroin. And this film is based on a true story, on the events that took up most of the news over here between 1994 and 1996.
Basically, Veronica was killed on the 26th of June, 1996. She was killed because she took it all too far. She started messing with the dealers, she was about to name and shame them, so they killed her. Well, one gang leader killed her. There were a lot of gangs. It wasn’t like she had no warnings, she was shot in the leg, beaten up, threatened… this evil guy called John Gilligan threatened to ‘kidnap her son and ride him’, yet she didn’t stop. So she killed her self, basically. Everyone moans at me when I say that, ‘Oh, no she wasn’t, she was brave, blah de blah…’ Brave? She had everything to lose and nothing to gain. Except the satisfaction of ‘nabbing the story’. Yeah, I’d rather not get the story and save my life thanks. She got neither. She was a brilliant journalist, I look up to her in that respect, but she was stupid. You don’t mess with any heroin dealers, and especially not these guys. The editor of the newspaper told her to stop, but she didn’t. Her mother told her to stop, and so did her husband. But out of all these people you would think that she would at least listen to the gang leaders with guns in their hands. And that’s why she was eventually shot dead (to an ear piercingingly awful rendition of ‘The Fields of Athenry’ in the movie, but probably not in real life).
Cate Blanchett played Veronica, and damn that woman, I can’t even fault her on the accent. Meh. I hope she gets an Oscar, but she probably won’t because I’m fully convinced that the Oscar panel is a group of (uncharacteristically) stupid chimpanzees. Am fully maddened that Australian can do better Dublin accent than me.
Half the cast was instantly recognisable as ‘Glenroe’ (rural Irish soap, no longer running, by- product of ‘Bracken’, the show that launched Gabriel Byrne) and ‘Fair City’ (urban soap, still running) actors. And almost everyone else was familiar too. Even Colin Farrell turned up for a few minutes. I wanted to give his character a hug actually, he was cute.
One good thing came of Veronica’s death- the Criminal Assets Bureau. This was set up to check out any wealth of suspicious origins. But the heroin situation in Dublin has got worse, in all fairness. There’s this relatively new monument in O’Connell Street called ‘The Spire’… but it’s been nicknamed ‘The Spike’ because it resembles a heroin needle and people say that it represents Dublin’s heroin problem. It’s not just Dublin though, there’s a lot of junk in Cork as well, and Limerick also has a problem at the moment. And cocaine is a problem now too, thanks to the Celtic Tiger. And of course hash, which kills brain cells. I’m sick of telling that to my friends that smoke marijuana though, let them become stupid, that’s their problem. So it’s not like Veronica solved the drug crisis or anything. She was just unlucky/ stupid enough to get tangled in it.
It said, at the end of the film, that everyone remembers where they were when they heard that Veronica Guerin had been killed on the Naas Road. Amazingly (and I say that because I don’t remember much, and I was only nine at the time), I remember that I was playing with Jimmy in the kitchen when a newsflash came on the radio. I’m the only one out of my friends who remembers where they were. *is proud*
Great film though, honestly, I really recommend it. Go see it.
Oh, and the one fault? Yeah, well whenever they showed an RTÉ newsflash, they used the style of bulletin that is used nowadays. The style that has only been around these last few years. So there.
Yeah, I was really desperate for something to fault.