WHEN THE SKY FALLS

WHEN THE SKY FALLS

Directed by John MacKenzie. Starring Joan Allen, Patrick Bergin, Jimmy Smallhorne, Pete Posthlewaite

Few breaking stories have ever had quite as much impact as the news of Veronica Guerin's savage murder in the summer of 1996. You can, no doubt, remember exactly where you were and what you were doing when the news reached you. Her like hasn't been seen since - so the full-scale silver-screen biopic was as inevitable as the morning sun.

What a shame it is, then, that her memory is so poorly served in this embarrassingly trite, cliched and predictable heap of horseshit: When The Sky Falls is every bit as lame and unexciting as its title hints. Not only does it do no justice whatsoever to its subject, it posthumously appropriates her memory to serve a noxious political agenda in the same way that the Gardai and associated scum did in the months following her murder.

The gist of the entire project is that, Christ-like, this woman selflessly laid down her life so that the filth would have everlasting power, and such disgustingly discredited concepts as the right to silence and the presumption of innocence could be consigned to history's dustbin.

All politics aside, the film fails miserably as pure drama, with the most cliche-ridden script you could humanly imagine, and a less-than-historically-accurate portrayal of mid-nineties Dublin as a smack-ravaged version of Beirut, where all the kids are skulking around in pursuit of their next fix.

The quality of the acting, meanwhile, must be seen to be believed. Has there ever, anywhere, been a more absurdly over-rated actress than Joan Allen? She regurgitates her one note here to almost spooky effect - you're imploring someone to check her pulse for signs of life - and her Irish accent is as foul as you would expect.

Patrick Bergin's Detective Sergeant Mackey, a truly terrifying beast, is depicted as a mighty good cop unfairly restricted by bleeding-heart-liberal notions of civil liberties and the like. The role affords plenty of scope for Bergin to capitalise on his considerable charmlessness, and the film's presumption that any audience could root for this reactionary filth-pig on his evidence-planting escapades is more than a mite disturbing.

So you've got a dodgy script, ropey acting, cringeworthy Irish accents and truly spine-chilling politics: it's not a mixture which warms the heart overmuch, and one imagines that even Guerin's family will need a long lie down afterwards. A rotten memorial, in every sense.