When The Sky Falls Film Review

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WHEN THE SKY FALLS

Veronica Guerin was an Irish journalist who was assassinated in 1996 after writing increasingly inflammatory articles in the Irish Press linking drug barons, The IRA, the Dublin underworld and various unsolved murders. Her death made her an instant Irish martyr: a relentless inquisitor who would stop at nothing to get to the truth. Unfortunately the film of the last few months of her life is a pretty turgid affair which rarely manages to excite the viewer, despite being helmed by Bob Mackenzie, the director of The Long Good Friday.

The film has a very dated feel from the beginning, when an undramatic car chase is underscored by a dismal soundtrack that is redolent of Giorgio Moroder at his peak. Lacking in dramatic tension throughout, the overall feeling is akin to watching a poor episode of Taggart. Joan Allen plays Sinead Hamilton, Guerin's onscreen alter ego, the journalist gaining increasing notoriety for her refusal to bow to threats from the Dublin crimelords to cease her investigations. When her first target (Pete Postlethwaite) is murdered, she sets about exposing who is responsible for his death.

The trouble is that too many characters are introduced too quickly, leading to inevitable confusion. Allen encounters various drug runners, lackeys for the crime bosses, the bosses themselves, their wives and so on. But their relevance to the overall plot is never coherently explained and the film soon becomes a fairly tiresome procession of scenes in which Allen encounters strangers in dark alleys looking for 'information'.

Allen herself is competent and manages a satisfying Oirish brogue. But once again you cannot help feeling that while she is a technically accomplished actress, the viewer is unable to get under the skin of the character she is portraying. Yes she is tenacious, unafraid and dogged but it all seems to be very clinically adept rather than emotionally convincing. Support comes in the guise of faces familiar from In the Name of the Father and Michael Collins with Patrick Bergin the only one to stand out. Bereft of the good looks that made him Hollywood's flavour of the month in the early 90s and sporting a look apparently based on Coronation Street's Jim MacDonald, Bergin does at least lift all of the scenes he appears in.