Although flawed, 'Veronia Guerin' tells worthy story

No one was paying attention when Joan Allen played a fictionalized version of Veronica Guerin, renamed Sinead Hamilton, in John Mackenzie's "When the Sky Falls" (2000).

Despite an American star, the picture appears never to have been released theatrically outside Great Britain.

But here's the heavily promoted new "Veronica Guerin" with the comparably well-regarded Cate Blanchett in the title role.

Buena Vista is crazy to release it against two higher-profile adult dramas, "Mystic River" and "Runaway Jury," because "Veronica Guerin" would have been a tough sell to Americans under the best of circumstances.

It begins June 26, 1996, the day of Veronica's execution by a drug lord's henchmen.

Skip back two years. Veronica is an investigative newspaper reporter who, we're told in one line, had done exposes on church and corporate corruption. Now she's going after Dublin's most vicious drug kingpins, especially Martin Cahill (Gerry O'Brien in the role Brendan Gleeson did in "The General" and Ken Stott in "Vicious Circle") and John Gilligan (Gerard McSorley).

The nature of her earlier journalistic triumphs has ill-prepared her to confront the savages she encounters in the underworld.

Tooled as a cross between the exploits of title heroines "(Karen) Silkwood" and "Erin Brockovich," "Veronica Guerin" takes the life-endangering risks of the former with the cheeky approach of the latter.

Although movies today are filled with fantasy action heroines ("Lara Croft," "Charlie's Angels"), the adult audience watching "Veronica Guerin" -- however accurate it strives to be -- will wince at the reporter's miscalculations and naivete, and possibly even disconnect. She's like a brash Girl Scout going after the Third Reich on a real-world playing field.

Priding herself on extreme assertion -- she symptomatically drives at more than 100 mph -- she isn't even fazed when a bullet is fired into her home while her husband and young son are in the room. She's capable of tears and fear, but she rebounds from escalating attacks with the ease of a movie tough guy.

Maybe the real Veronica was just as cocky, but the effect is to distance the character from the audience. It's especially true when she insensitively jabbers on a cell phone during a religious graveside service.

Even when she's talking with desolate young drug addicts, she does so without sympathy or tact.

Possibly diminished in the final editing, Veronica's family barely registers as a factor in her life, even though her mother Bernadette is played by the estimable Brenda Fricker.

The screenplay by Carol Doyle and Mary Agnes Donoghue knows what it wants to say, and the story is worth telling. The main problem is that while the sequence of events may be lifted from headlines, the interesting and flawed film lacks the resonance of art.

Additional Information:

Movie Details

'Veronica Guerin'

Director : Joel Schumacher

Stars : Cate Blanchett, Gerard McSorley, Brenda Fricker

MPAA rating : R for violence, language and some drug content