OPENED AUGUST 1, CERT 18, 96 MINS There seemed to be a fascination with Dublin's criminal underworld during the 1990s?to date, two films have been made about the notorious Martin Cahill, aka The General, a peripheral character in this film. And this is the third movie to be inspired by the story of crusading Irish journalist Veronica Guerin, after a made-for-TV drama and the worthy and best-forgotten Joan Allen vehicle When The Sky Falls. So despite being a superior film to most of the others (The General excepted), Joel Schumacher's competent drama suffers from source material that's been picked over too many times already. Cate Blanchett gives a strong lead performance although, to be fair, she has a better script to work with than Joan Allen did. The Guerin that we see in this version is a less varnished character?an absentee mother, a journalist with a half-baked grasp of grammar and a rash, foolhardy woman. And for this flawed complexity, she's far more likeable than Allen's saintly incarnation, and probably closer to the truth.
OPENED AUGUST 1, CERT 18, 96 MINS
There seemed to be a fascination with Dublin’s criminal underworld during the 1990s?to date, two films have been made about the notorious Martin Cahill, aka The General, a peripheral character in this film. And this is the third movie to be inspired by the story of crusading Irish journalist Veronica Guerin, after a made-for-TV drama and the worthy and best-forgotten Joan Allen vehicle When The Sky Falls. So despite being a superior film to most of the others (The General excepted), Joel Schumacher’s competent drama suffers from source material that’s been picked over too many times already. Cate Blanchett gives a strong lead performance although, to be fair, she has a better script to work with than Joan Allen did. The Guerin that we see in this version is a less varnished character?an absentee mother, a journalist with a half-baked grasp of grammar and a rash, foolhardy woman. And for this flawed complexity, she’s far more likeable than Allen’s saintly incarnation, and probably closer to the truth.
