Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Veronica Guerin

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Posted by Pravin Ratnam (Member # 1417) on 10-19-2003, 12:14 PM:

I saw a movie produced by Michael Bay and another one by Bruckenheimer directed by Joel Shumaker in the same day. The movie gods are frowning at me right now.
This is the type of movie I normally love. But I found it forgettable despite it being based on a true life journalist in Ireland. I am usually a sucker for these kind of movies.

My problems with the movie:
Joel Shumaker's direction was just competent(I guess an improvement for him), but in no way good. The sense of outrage we need to feel at what's happening is not built up as much as it should be. Yeah, you don't have to sugarcoat the character. But when someone can be as maddening and boring as the main character, and you already took the liberty of changing the drugs from pot to heroin in the movie script, I wish they found some interesting aspects of this journalist's methods to focus on. I am not discounting her courage, but then that alone is good for some news specials on tv. If you are going to make a movie, identify some traits that would be interesting to watch unfold on the screen.

This is really no better than a Lifetime movie and slightly dull at times.

Cate Blanchett does a decent job, but is really hamstrung by the character. The family scenes are kind of boring.