Taglines: Why would anyone want to kill Veronica Guerin?
All Irish know where they were on 26 June 1996 when they learned that crusading journalist Veronica Guerin had been gunned down on Dublin’s Naas Road. The film starts with her assassination and looks back at what brought it on. For more than 18 months, she’d been digging into and writing about Dublin’s drug trade, starting with the youths who were hooked and working up to the big dealers. As she gets close to the biggest crook, John Gilligan, she’s given a warning shot, a gunshot wound, a beating, and a threat against her young son. Her husband and mother try to dissuade her, as does a key informant, double-dealing John Traynor. What drives her on – idealism, the chase, fame?
Veronica Guerin is an Irish biographical crime film directed by Joel Schumacher and starring Cate Blanchett in the title role. The screenplay by Carol Doyle and Mary Agnes Donoghue focuses on Irish journalist Veronica Guerin, whose investigation into the drug trade in Dublin led to her murder in 1996. The film is the second to be inspired by Guerin’s life. Three years earlier, When the Sky Falls centred on the same story, although the names of the real-life characters were changed.
The film was shot on location in Dublin and in Naas in County Kildare, with some scenes also being shot near Newtownmountkennedy in County Wicklow. Colin Farrell makes a cameo appearance as a heavily tattooed young man Guerin briefly engages in conversation about a soccer match. The soundtrack includes “Funeral Song” and “One More Day” performed by Sinéad O’Connor, “Aftermath” by Tricky, and “Everlasting Love” by U2. The score was composed by Harry Gregson-Williams.
About the Story
Veronica Guerin (Cate Blanchett) is a feisty crime reporter for the Sunday Independent. Suddenly aware of how much Dublin’s illegal drug trade is encroaching upon the lives of its working class citizens, especially the children, she becomes determined to expose the men responsible for its spread.
Guerin begins by interviewing the pre-pubescent addicts who shoot up on the street or in abandoned buildings in the housing estates. Her investigation leads her to major suppliers and John Traynor (Ciarán Hinds), a notable source of information about the criminal underworld. Traynor is willing to assist her to an extent but is not above misleading her in order to protect himself from nefarious drug lord John Gilligan (Gerard McSorley). In order to steer her away from Gilligan, Traynor suggests Gerry Hutch (Alan Devine), a criminal known as The Monk, is in charge of the operation. Guerin pursues him with a vengeance, only to discover he is not involved.
As Guerin’s investigation deepens and she comes closer to the truth, she and her family become targets. When a bullet fired through a window in her home as a warning fails to stop her, she is shot in the leg and the life of her young son Cathal (Simon O’Driscoll) is threatened. Her husband Graham (Barry Barnes), mother Bernie (Brenda Fricker), and brother Jimmy (Paul Ronan) implore her to stop, but when Guerin confronts Gilligan at his home and he savagely beats her, she becomes more determined to expose him for who he is. Rather than press charges against him, which would necessitate her removal from the story, she forges ahead with her investigation.
On 26 June 1996, Guerin appears in court to respond to an accumulation of parking tickets and numerous penalties for speeding that she has ignored. She is given a nominal fine of IR£100, but while en route home she calls her mother and then her husband to report the good news. She is speaking to her office while stopped at traffic lights on red on the Naas Dual Carriageway when a motorcycle with two men on it pulls up beside her. The driver breaks the window of her car and then shoots her six times. The two flee and dispose of the bike and the gun in a nearby canal.
Guerin is mourned by her family, friends, associates and the country at large. Her violent death results in the establishment of the Criminal Assets Bureau and Gilligan together with several of his henchmen are tried and sentenced to lengthy prison terms. In an epilogue, we learn that “Veronica Guerin’s writing turned the tide in the drug war. Her murder galvanised Ireland into action. Thousands of people took to the streets in weekly anti-drug marches, which drove the dealers out of Dublin and forced the drug barons underground. Within a week of her death, in an emergency session of the Parliament, the Government altered the Constitution of the Republic of Ireland to allow the High Court to freeze the assets of suspected drug barons.”
Veronica Guerin (2003)
Directed by: Joel Schumacher
Starring: Cate Blanchett, Gerard McSorley, Ciarán Hinds, Brenda Fricker, Amy Shiels, Charlotte Bradley, Alan Devine, Danielle Fox Clarke, Paul Ronan, Stephen O’Doherty
Screenplay by: Joel Schumacher
Production Design by: Nathan Crowley
Cinematography by: Brendan Galvin
Film Editing by: David Gamble
Costume Design by: Joan Bergin
Set Decoration by: Paki Smith
Music by: Harry Gregson-Williams
MPAA Rating: R for violence, language and some drug content.
Distributed by: Buena Vista Pictures
Release Date: October 17, 2003
Visits: 89
