List Price: $19.99 Our Price: $17.99YOU SAVE $2!
Buy it
DVD Veronica Guerin
Ireland's most beloved and tragic contemporary hero/martyr gets the Hollywood treatment in the fact-based thriller Veronica Guerin, an average film made recommendable for a fine performance by Cate Blanchett in the title role. The life, work, and assassination of the slain Irish journalist is respectfully chronicled in this gritty, streetwise biopic by director Joel Schumacher, beginning with her 1996 murder (by Irish gangsters) and flashing back to her diligent efforts, begun in 1994, to expose the drug trade that plagued Ireland for most of the decade. Blanchett is flawless in a role that combines passion, courage, and recklessness in a way that doesn't sugar-coat Guerin's character or imbue her with artificial heroics. Unfortunately, Schumacher (who makes room for an unbilled Colin Farrell cameo) and a naggingly unsophisticated screenplay turn Guerin's complex story into a conventionally accessible thriller that sometimes seems too good to be true, which is ironic given that Guerin's story was fictionalized in the marginally better 2000 film When the Sky Falls, starring Joan Allen. Recommendable for Blanchett's performance and two memorably villainous roles for Ciarán Hinds and Gerald McSorley, Veronica Guerin is an adequate tribute that could and should have been exceptional. --Jeff Shannon
The story of Veronica Guerin is the story of violence & society; the brutishness of some of its scenes serves no entertainment quotient consequently, but to illustrate the reality of this societal affliction. We see violence on television and in the movies so much that, in large measure, we continually creep toward a fatalistic acceptance of it. Or we simply try not to concern ourselves with it so long as it does not directly affect us. Representations of it on the screen are viewed---we see someone shoot another, say, but the terror of such violence is rarely conveyed skillfully enough for us to actually feel as if we ourselves are the ones being subjected to such gastly behavior. That's the problem with Hollywood: it serves up platefuls of violence without inculcating in us viewers any revulsion to it. It's not real, anyway; It's the movies, or television, etc., goes the refrain. But violence ISN'T entertainment. If we are to be subjected to expressions of it, I'd argue, the least we should expect---except perhaps in military epics---is that the director should present it for what it is and/or attempt to at least show the horror of it from the victim's perspective. Is that too much to ask? Fortunately, director Joel Schumacher, in this film does just that. A particular scene in this biopic has reporter Veronica (most ably portrayed by Cate Blanchett) coming to knock on the door of a gangster. What follows, as you can well imagine, is a confrontational exchange. And the reason this film is a fine effort is that the rage of the (heretofore, under-the-radar) gangster is made as apparent herein as the fear with which his victim cowers from it. The scene is as unpleasant to watch as it is important for understanding what the real Veronica Guerin persevered through. And we---figuratively placed in her shoes thanks to skilled filmmakers---are left to ponder why, in fact, she continued to soldier on in the face of such; how she could recover from the blows she received---particularly the psychological one of almost being scared to death. (One can learn more about this scene which, incidentially---like most in this film---actually occurred, by listening to the director's audio commentary available on this DVD. The producer and writing team offer 2 additional commentaries for the especially interested.) Do consider this (more like 3½ star) film. And contrary to what the editorial review says above, the first attempt at making this story into a film---"When the Sky Falls"---is not half as successful as "Veronica Guerin." (04Nov) Cheers!
biographical license
I did not know the story of Veronica Guerin in much detail before watching this film, so I don't know if Cate Blanchett's portrayal was accurate. Blanchett is a great actress and has taken on varying roles, including those of real people. By all accounts, whether or not this film presents a true to the facts version of the story, it does tell a story that was not incredibly well known outside its native Ireland when it happened and certainly brings it into international focus now, which is well deserved. Guerin was a fact digging journalist, who pursued her leads to get stories, and in the case of pursuing the drug underworld and Ireland's drug lords/"mafia" of sorts, she went too far. Guerin's drive to tell the truth about this growing epidemic created a stir, and her life was on several occasions threatened. Her family warned her to back down, the drug lords warned her to back down, her informant warned her too. She was playing with fire, but she did not back down, seeing her job as a journalist to tell the whole story, damn the consequences. Unfortunately she was assassinated in 1996, and outside of Ireland or within certain circles, the story was not well known until now.
Passionate or Naive?
So this movie was supposed to be a depiction of real-life events in the life of an investigative reporter determined to expose the seedy underbelly of an organized crime group in Dublin. I don't mean any disrespect to Ms. Guerin or the work that she did for her country, but this movie doesn't do well depicting her motivations and life.
I cannot imagine how a woman who has been personally threatened, who has had her family threatened, and who has survived an assassination attempt, would continue to pursue her goal as dogmatically and as recklessly as Ms. Guerin did in this movie. I'm not saying she should have stopped what she was doing, but there had to have been other ways for her to get the story without as much personal risk to her and her family.
I crystallized this conclusion when I saw the scene where Ms. Guerin approaches Mr. Galligan, basically to top man in the crime syndicate, at his estate, which is expansive and includes a horse ranch. By this point Ms. Guerin has already been shot once (at her son's birthday party!) and had her family's life threatened. Yet she, without a wire or other police assistance, walks right up to Mr. Galligan's door and asks him point blank how he can afford his life when he no visible source of income. This of course results in her getting the crap kicked out of her. What did she expect, milk and cookies?
For all the chutzpah Ms. Guerin showed when approaching the crime lords face to face, I would have expected her to pull at least a Buffy or two. When you ask the cheeky questions in dangerous situations, you better either have a big bodyguard or be able to take care of yourself. She had neither, and, in a way, invited the physical abuse upon herself.
Again, I don't mean to put down Ms. Guerin's real-life accomplishment in terms of calling attention to the drug problem thus starting its eradication, but the Veronica Guerin portrayed in this film was no doubt meant to appear strong, confident, and passionate about her cause; she came across instead as headstrong and reckless, placing her and her family's life in jeopardy.
Charlotte Gray does little to tarnish Cate Blanchett's rising-star status but misfires badly as a moralistic World War II drama. The title character of the film, which is based on a popular novel of the same name by Sebastian Faulks, is a young Scottish woman (Blanchett) who has come to London to help with the war effort. After quickly falling in love with a dashing pilot who is summarily shot down in southwest France, the intensely patriotic Charlotte joins a special operations outfit in order to find him. Competent melodrama to this point, the film goes astray from here. Since repeated references are made to Charlotte's fluent French, it is hard to maintain any suspension of disbelief when she parachutes into Lezignac and we discover that the French resistance fighters she works... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Cate Blanchett Director(s): Gillian Armstrong DVD Release Date: Released the 03 February 2004 Usually ships within 24 hours
List Price: $14.97 Your Price: $13.47YOU SAVE $1.5!
Buy it
Solidly built around a subtle yet commanding performance by Don Cheadle, Hotel Rwanda emerged as one of the most highly-praised dramas of 2004. In a role that demands his quietly riveting presence in nearly every scene, Cheadle plays real-life hero Paul Rusesabagina, a hotel manager in the Rwandan capital of Kigali who in 1994 saved 1,200 Rwandan "guests" from certain death during the genocidal clash between tribal Hutus, who slaughtered a million victims, and the horrified Tutsis, who found safe haven or died. Giving his best performance since his breakthrough role in Devil in a Blue Dress, Cheadle plays Rusesabagina as he really was during the ensuing chaos: "an expert in situational ethics" (as described by critic Roger Ebert), doing what he morally had to do, at... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Don Cheadle - Sophie Okonedo Director(s): Terry George DVD Release Date: Released the 12 April 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $19.94 Your Price: $14.96YOU SAVE $4.98!
Buy it
A movie guaranteed to make the blood boil, The Magdalene Sisters gives a lacerating account of life inside a Magdalene Laundry, one of the dismal asylums for "wayward women" run by the Catholic Church in Ireland. Director Peter Mullan, inspired by a TV documentary on the same subject, follows the miserable fates of three young women who are institutionalized in the 1960s for flimsy reasons; their lives are at the mercy of sadistic nuns (Geraldine McEwan is superb as the head of the place). The film sounds tortuous, but its rich sense of outrage and excellent performances--Nora-Jane Noone is a real discovery--make it consistently gripping. The movie won the top prize at the Venice Film Festival and went on to become a box-office hit in Ireland, where the Magdalene system was still a... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Anne-Marie Duff - Nora-Jane Noone - Dorothy Duffy - Eileen Walsh Director(s): Peter Mullan DVD Release Date: Released the 23 March 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $19.99 Your Price: $17.99YOU SAVE $2!
Buy it
The luminous Cate Blanchett (Elizabeth, The Lord of the Rings) stars as a British teacher living in Italy who's driven to plant a bomb on a drug dealer in cahoots with the police. When she is arrested and interrogated, she learns that her bomb went awry and killed four innocents; a young policeman (Giovanni Ribisi, Saving Private Ryan) is so struck by her grief that he falls helplessly in love with her and throws aside his entire life to help her. Directed by Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run) from a screenplay cowritten by the late Krzysztof Kieslowski (Trois Couleurs, The Double Life of Veronique), Heaven is a film with an astonishing compassion for the power and fragility of human relationships, coupled with a faith that forces beyond our... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Cate Blanchett - Giovanni Ribisi Director(s): Tom Tykwer DVD Release Date: Released the 17 June 2003 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $14.99 Your Price: $13.49YOU SAVE $1.5!
Buy it
