CINEMA: FILMS TO REMEMBER

Then suddenly the trio are drawn together again when Katie is found brutally murdered in a local park. Sean is assigned to investigate the killing with his partner Whitey (Laurence Fishburne). Suspicion gradually falls on the disturbed, guilt-ridden Dave, because that night he sustained several wounds from a mugger, or so he tells his wife. The vengeful Jimmy, it transpires, has a criminal record - having gone to jail for armed robbery as a teenager - and he turns vigilante, calling on some former underworld associates to help him track down the murderer. The result is a cleverly plotted and convincing police procedural thriller. Within its margins, there's a delightful performance from Eli Wallach as the elderly owner of a liquor store. But the film is much more than that. It's a complex exploration of painful relationships between fathers and children, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, and old friends. The unfashionably slow editing style and the concentration on close-ups and two-shots allow Eastwood to scrutinize his characters as they are forced to dig into themselves. The performances have a rare depth, intensity and rawness.  

She's a Renegade with no Deadline. “Veronica Guerin” Starring: Cate Blanchett. RATING: 2 Stars

Movies have always confused journalists with cops, and maybe the comparison isn't far off: Both jobs appear to be about unraveling mysteries, but both are really about paperwork. The difference, however, is that cops get shot more often. Not to belittle those journalists who put their lives on the line daily, but their movie brethren are a Hollywood fantasy of tough-talking, street-walking renegades without deadlines. Meet the patron saint of fantasy journalists: Veronica Guerin, real-life crime columnist for the Sunday Independent who was shot to death in 1996 for digging too deep into Dublin's drug trade. As played by Cate Blanchett, she's professionally relentless, meaning she'll wear black stilettos to get her story or storm into a room of junkies and announce, "I'm Veronica. Where did you get the gear?" Movie Guerin also never takes a single note or uses a tape recorder. When she's shot in the first few minutes -- the movie is one big flashback -- one wonders if the killers are revenge-seeking fact checkers. The hack coating that clings to this compelling story is courtesy of director Joel Schumacher. The man behind Bad Company and the two worst Batmans (yes, he made the respectable war pic Tigerland, but he'll have to give us several dozen Tigerlands to make up for Flawless) is a cinematic bully; his greatest pleasure is to get in his audience's face and roar, filling every possibly thoughtful moment with a loud noise. Schumacher is faithless; he doesn't believe moviegoers could care about Veronica Guerin unless those out to get her are cackling cartoon baddies.

The drug-addled city is in the palm of John Gilligan (Gerard McSorley), an explosive gangster with a fondness for horses. He's surrounded by grunting leather-jacketed thugs, each indistinguishable from the next. To get to Gilligan, Guerin uses her favourite source, John Traynor (Ciarán Hinds), a low-level hood with a hunger for publicity. Their relationship is the most interesting in the film: each parasitic, each slightly enamoured with the other.