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Dom Robinson reviews
Touchstone Home Video
- Cert:
- Cat.no: D 881194
- Running time: 94 minutes
- Year: 2003
- Pressing: 2004
- Region(s): 2, PAL
- Chapters: 16 plus extras
- Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1
- Languages: English
- Subtitles: English for the hearing-impaired
- Widescreen: 2.35:1 (Anamorphic Panavision)
- 16:9-Enhanced: Yes
- Macrovision: Yes
- Disc Format: DVD 9
- Price: £17.99
- Extras: Audio descriptive track
Director:
- Joel Schumacher
(8MM, Bad Company, Batman Forever, Batman & Robin, The Client, Cousins, D.C. Cab, Dying Young, Falling Down, Flatliners, Flawless, The Incredible Shrinking Woman, The Lost Boys, On The Road, Phantom of the Opera (2004), Phone Booth, St Elmo’s Fire, Tigerland, A Time To Kill, Veronica Guerin)
Producer:
- Jerry Bruckheimer
Screenplay:
- Carol Doyle and Mary Agnes Donaghue
Music:
- Harry Gregson-Williams
Cast:
- Veronica Guerin: Cate Blanchett
John Gilligan: Gerard McSorley
John Traynor: Ciaran Hinds
Bernie Guerin: Brenda Fricker
Chris Mulligan: Don Wycherley
Graham Turley: Barry Barnes
Cathal Turley: Simon O’Driscoll
Aengus Fanning: Emmet Bergin
Anne Harris: Charlotte Bradley
Willie Kealy: Mark Lambert
Gerry Hutch: Alan Devine
Martin Cahill: Gerry O’Brien
Frances Cahill: Gabrielle Reidy
Tattooed Boy: Colin Farrell
Veronica Guerin covers the last two years in the life of this woman, who was murdered on June 26th 1996 for getting a little too close to the truth.
Told in flashback, she was a hard-hitting journalist who told the truth about drugs and crime, in an area where the problem was so big that methodone clinics registered addicts on their books as young as 14 years old and children became hooked on junk when they were tempted by their first hit costing a mere five pounds and how things were cheaper if you rented other people’s needles. Sounds disgusting, but then it’s a disgusting problem. Just how far do you go to sort it out though?
I don’t pretend to know a massive amount about the IRA, nor this case, but this quick-paced drama goes along without dragging you deep into the specifics. You know who’s bad and who’s good, and in the case of the former it’s most of the people onscreen. It moves along well too because, apart from its lead, it doesn’t have any big names in the main cast although there is a cameo from Colin Farrell as a football fan known only to us as “Tattooed Boy” in the credits. Presumably, he did this brief role as a favour to director Joel Schmacher for their collaboration on 2003’s Phone Booth.
Veronica Guerin would’ve made a good TV movie, but it plays out like a pedestrian drama that doesn’t fare too well as a major motion picture. Apparently it was approved by Guerin’s parents, so presumably it’s factually-accurate but that doesn’t make it the most scintillating film of the year, and there’s also the disclaimer at the end that certain events have been fictionalised for the movie.
So, at the end of it all, was it worth dying just to name and shame the bad guys? I’d say not. So, she got some of the big-wigs. That doesn’t stop drug dealers from operating worldwide and a husband has lost his wife and a son has lost her mother. That’s no kind of trade-off.
The picture is presented in an anamorphic 2.35:1 widescreen ratio and there’s no complaints with that. The Dolby Digital 5.1 sound doesn’t particularly stand out in such a drama but it’s clean and clear with no problems either.
You’d expect such a DVD to be packed with extras. Documentaries about Guerin herself, and precisely what her parents thought about this film and how much they consulted. And why would a Hollywood studio and a producer in particular (Jerry Bruckheimer) be particularly interested in the story of a little-known journalist when he mainly deals with big-budget action films? So what do we have…?
Nothing. No extras at all apart from an audio descriptive track which is worth a listen, but doesn’t replace the kind of extras you’d expect from a highly emotive film such as this. Shame on you, Touchstone.
On top of that, there’s only English subtitles (with a hearing-impaired option), a handful of 16 chapters and a static and silent menu. That doesn’t sound like a fitting tribute to a murdered journalist.
PICTURE QUALITY
SOUND QUALITY
EXTRAS
OVERALL 
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.