On
June 26, 1996, thirty-six-year-old Irish journalist Veronica
Guerin was gunned down while driving her
car on a motorway outside Dublin. The film Veronica Guerin,
directed by Joel Schumacher, tells why she was assassinated
and how her death changed the political landscape in Ireland.
After depicting the scene in which she was killed, the
story moves back two years. Walking on the streets of Dublin,
Veronica Guerin (played by Cate Blanchett) finds discarded
syringes used as toys by toddlers. Nosing around, she finds
teenagers stoned on drugs, and she suspects that the influx
of drugs is associated with Ireland's skyrocketing crime
rate. She also discovers a weekly march by parents in the
syringe-infested neighborhood against drugs, but few are
involved. In her news stories, Veronica attempts to raise
consciousness of the need to crack down on the drug traffic.
Her police informants cooperate, but the constitution and
the law are not sufficient to enable the authorities to
apprehend notorious druglords, and her pressure on a member
of parliament to change the law is brushed aside. Her informant
in the crime world, John "Coach" Traynor (played
by Ciarán Hinds), gives her additional information,
but he is only interested in embarrassing one gang so that
his gang will benefit. Undeterred after she is shot in
the leg by an unknown assailant, she confronts a top kingpin,
John Gilligan (played by Gerard McSorley), who beats her
up and then threatens to kidnap her six-year-old old son,
rape him, and kill her if she either exposes him in the
newspaper or presses charges in court. Veronica, nevertheless,
goes to court, but Gilligan gets a delay in the arraignment
and an associate boasts that more delays will occur in
the future. A few days later, on June 26, Veronica is shot
dead. (Titles at the end of the film indicate that more
than 200 journalists have died in recent years.) The violence
that she sustained previously had made her a national heroine,
so her death made her a national martyr. The neighborhood
marchers grow to thousands. The constitution is amended.
And parliament passes appropriate legislation to seize
the assets of suspected druglords, many of whom are then
apprehended, stripped of their assets, and imprisoned.
The crime rate falls. "Coach" flees to Portugal,
where he fights extradition. Gilligan flees to England,
is extradited, and in 2001 imprisoned for twenty-eight
years. A remake of the less popular Irish film When
the Sky Falls (2000), Veronica Guerin illustrates
what can be done to stop drug trafficking in a homogeneous
country, thus containing a message very different from Traffic (2000), Blow (2001),
and Our Lady of the
Assassins (2001). Accordingly, the Political
Film Society has nominated Veronica Guerin as
best film on democracy and best film exposé of 2003.
MH
I
want to comment on this film
