Veronica Guerin

It is reasonable to assume that almost everyone in Ireland can remember where they were when news reached their ears that the then Sunday Independent crime correspondent Veronica Guerin had been shot dead, riddled with bullets by the utterly ruthless über-scum her career had been spent chronicling. After one hideously botched attempt at a biopic – 2000’s much-derided When the Sky Falls – it’s a pleasure to report that Guerin’s hair-raising story has finally been committed to celluloid in a manner that does the tale justice, and the result is a gripping and supremely-acted piece of work.

Produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and shot by Joel Schumacher, little expense is spared on the budgetary front, while a strikingly well-assembled cast is headed up by the ever-reliable Cate Blanchett, whose nuanced and sympathetic portrayal of Guerin may well be a career high point to date. Blanchett’s Guerin is an utterly credible and – exceptional bravery notwithstanding – strikingly ordinary individual, happiest when making small talk about Manchester United. The Aussie actress brings a fragile, feminine vulnerability to the role, while summoning up all the required steeliness when needed. It’s quite a performance.

She is surrounded by some of the best and least-heralded actors in Ireland, with Ciaran Hinds and Gerald McSorley especially praiseworthy for their chilling renditions of, respectively, John ‘The Coach’ Traynor and John Gilligan, key figures in the unscrupulous underworld in which Guerin moved, eventually paying the ultimate price.

The film’s depiction of mid-’90s Dublin in the middle of the smack-pushers/Concerned Parents Against Drugs face-off has the ring of authenticity, as do the various crime-lords in all their seedy glory. Possibly too specifically Irish a story to attract the international attention it deserves, Veronica Guerin is still a spellbinding tale, excellently told.