By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3 cats
Director: Joel Schumacher
Starring: Barry Barnes | Brenda Fricker | Cate Blanchett | Ciarán Hinds | Colin Farrell | Don Wycherley | Gerard McSorley
Country: ireland, united_kingdom, united_states
Year: 2003
Running time: 92
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0312549/combined
Bruce says: “It was a fluke that I saw VERONICA GUERIN immediately after seeing SHATTERED GLASS – two films about journalism based on true stories. Within a few hours I had a glimpse of two journalistic extremes. Veronica Guerin was a dedicated reporter who was obsessively driven in her efforts to expose odious thugs running an Irish drug ring. Stephen Glass is a gifted but amoral journalist who fabricated all or part of the majority of the articles he wrote for The New Republic. He is a scourge on his profession; she is the ideal.
“From the beginning we know that Veronica (Cate Blanchett) will die in her pursuit of the truth. Flashbacks tell us about the events leading up to her death. Her mob connection, John Traynor, (Ciaran Hinds) leads her deep into the working of the drug underworld only to double cross her in order to save his neck from the axe of mob kingpin John Gilligan (Gerard McSorley). Her mother (Brenda Fricker) says, ‘As a child you never showed your fear.’ She offers this as a warning to her adult daughter. Veronica tosses it aside with the attitude that what she learned as a child has served her well as an adult. She ignores the differences in her child playground activities and the Dublin underworld culture where everyone is at risk and expendable, sooner or later.
“As the story unfolds Veronica frets in front of her computer to show frustration and kicks a soccer ball around the courtyard to demonstrate anger. We don’t need frets, frowns, and soccer balls to help us understand who Veronica is and where she is going. Maybe these extra scenes were added to make the film less boring. In that case, they did not serve their purpose. Instead, they seem tacked on to make up for a lack of depth in Schumacher’s straightforward storytelling. The last ten to fifteen minutes of the film were worthy of its subject. The rest of the film is slightly better than TV movie quality. Certainly Veronica and Cate both deserve more than this.
“Cate Blanchett struggles to rise above the weak material and mediocre presentation. She succeeds, but she doesn’t get very far. She creates a Veronica who is extremely dedicated but not entirely likable. Fricker has little to do other than read bedtime stories to her grandson. McSorley does make quite an effective villain (and I do love a good villain).
“The viewer also knows the outcome of SHATTERED GLASS before the action begins. Stephen Glass is a sham and he is ultimately exposed. But the script and Hayden Christiansen play games with us along the way. We never know which statements from Glass are true and which are fabricated as he seduces his fellow workers with his charming, boyish enthusiasm and tells boldface lies to cover his tracks when confronted by his suspicious boss and rival journalists. The man mirrors his writings. There is no question in my mind that SHATTERED GLASS is the better film.
“Had I seen the films in reverse order my emotions would had been very conflicted. We are ultimately told that Veronica’s efforts and her death led to many arrests which broke up the drug ring; she did not die in vain. In the last few minutes of VERONICA GUERIN, I was deeply moved. Veronica was a woman who died committed to making life safer for the people and city she loved. To follow that with a film about a young man who disdained his fellow human beings would have been too much to bear. 3 cats”