“Journalistic Integrity
         or How Some Writers Give Journalism A Bad Rep.”

Veronica Guerin
directed by Joel Schumacher
screenplay by Carol Doyle and Mary Agnes Donoghue
starring Cate Blanchett, Gerard McSorley, Ciaran Hinds, Brenda Fricker

Shattered Glass
written and directed by Billy Ray
based on the article by H.G. Bissinger
starring Hayden Christensen, Peter Sarsgaard, Chloe Sevigny, Steve Zahn, Rosario Dawson, Melanie Lynskey, Hank Azaria

            “…worse than cops.  We can’t get search warrants or wire taps but we still have to prove everything.”   That is a great description of the difficulty of journalism.  It comes from Veronica Guerin whose titular heroine became a martyr reporting on the drug trade of Ireland in the mid-1990s.
            The film opens with Guerin’s assassination which takes place while in her car and on her cell phone, one of many scenes endorsing the portable technology as an aid in times of emergency.  Then the credits begin and we are given expository captions which give us the basic story we are about to witness.  This is automatically a bad sign.  It sets an audience up for a film that cannot stand alone on cinematic direction.  That is if the name Joel Schumacher (Bad Company; Phone Booth) doesn’t already tell them this.
            The real story begins with Veronica’s visit to a slum of Dublin in an attempt to interview some young junkies.  She gets nowhere and the reason for her being there is never established.  During the rest of her investigation she always credits that day, seeing those kids, as the main reason for battling the drug trade.  Also after that first day in the slums we are never really shown any progress in the investigation.  Guerin, as played strongly by Cate Blanchett, is just a squeaky wheel – obnoxious and tactless – who often got steered in the wrong direction and continually implies she’s “gotcha” with her raising eyebrows and grinding smile.  The film depicts the discoveries as lucky and accidental at best.  She never got any facts and never proved anything about anybody.  She was just annoying enough to bring out the truth by chance and, thanks to her saintly death, she pressured the government and police to actually go after the drug lords.
            As the major drug lord John Gilligan, Gerard McSorley is tough and mean and a little too obvious for someone who maintained complete anonymity until Guerin’s exposure.  With every bad turn in his business, he immaturely freaks out; he kicks, screams and throws things.  When Guerin trespasses onto his property his first reaction is to beat the crap out of her.  We are told early on that he’d been to prison, we’re shown his immense wealth and we’re never expected to believe he was under careful watch by anyone other than a nosey reporter.  Corruption could be an explanation, but for all the footage shown of alleged happenings within the trade (in scenes laid out as if Schumacher would rather make an Irish Goodfellas than Salvador) , there is little hard evidence given and there is never a look into what Guerin actually published against these people. 
            Veronica Guerin was a celebrity.  At one point, after being shot in the leg, competing journalists claim she inflicted the wound on herself to publicize her campaign.  Though this wasn’t the case, it may well have been for the way in which things unfolded.  She was the anti-Erin Brockovich.   The determination was there and the inevitable conclusions were made, but she never comes out as an admirable or respectable heroine.  The film may be brutally honest because of this, attempting to praise this woman while depicting her as exasperating, clumsy, selfish and unemotional toward her husband and son. 
            There is no denying the importance of this story.  It shows that journalism can make a difference in the world.  In the closing of the movie, a caption notes that 196 journalists have died while covering a story since her.  Maybe one of them had more integrity for their work but mattered less in the big picture?  Regardless, the connection is weak.  If we are to see a film about the dangerous importance of investigative reporting, we could be treated to something that actually makes the job look more appealing and adroit in light of the hazards involved.

“We let this happen because we found him entertaining.”  This is the only explanation editor Chuck Lane (Peter Skarsgaard) can give for such an error as publishing 23 made-up stories in The New Republic.  The stories were all written by Stephen Glass, at least half of his output working for the magazine, and the explanation, in the context of the film it’s quoted in, makes little sense. 
            According to Shattered Glass and the performance by Hayden Christensen, Stephen Glass was a whiney weasel of a reporter.  He kisses a lot of ass, he apologizes and asks whether people are mad at him constantly and he is extremely defensive.  While he pitches his stories in the conference room, excited as a small boy telling of a field trip he’s been on, lisping and stuttering, his peers laugh and seem entertained, but because his stories, backed up with visual reenactments, are so ridiculous, it is hard to imagine how the staff ever believed a word he said.  A response from viewing the depiction on screen is only one of pity and embarrassment.  Glass, in fact, after each pitch, spouts the self-doubting, “I know, it’s silly.  I don’t even think I’ll finish it.” 
            If Christensen wasn’t annoying enough in Attack of the Clones, here he is painfully shrill and that might be good characterization but is still excruciating to watch.    Never once does he seem legitimately charming or entertaining.  Sarsgaard, in contrast, is perfect in the scenes they share together showing great restraint over obvious petulance until finally exploding beautifully like a fireworks finale, impetuous yet taut.  His performance is a brilliant depiction of a man caught between trust and truth while embarrassingly discovering and witnessing a mockery of his profession. 
            The uncovering of Glass’s fraudulence is done superbly with Steve Zahn and Rosario Dawson playing somewhere between the Woodwards and Bernsteins of All the President’s Men and Dick.  Working for the online division of Forbes, the writers look into a story Glass published about a hacker that has so little factual information that fact checking seems completely non-existent.  Hopefully that department was fired along with the writer, but no blame is ever put on anyone save for Glass and the unfortunate trust of the magazine’s staff who are merely innocent of being taken advantage of.  The characters are quickly forgotten, though, despite being the most enjoyable. 
            As much as journalism is given a bad reputation by the story as far as its accountability is concerned, it should hopefully make writers all the more determined to work harder at proving their validity and importance.  Where the script loses focus and some of the acting loses believability in contextual setting, writer-director Billy Ray supplies the essential ideas and significance, despite certain creative hypocrisies.  In regard to films based on true stories, much of what is seen on the screen are fictional accounts with dialogue and situations that are fabricated for dramatic reasons. 
In a recent interview with James Cox, writer-director of Wonderland, a “true story” involving porn star John Holmes, the filmmaker claims to have invented a scene between Holmes’ young girlfriend and his ex-wife.  It certainly isn’t the first scene of its kind and the acknowledgement isn’t rare, but it still gives concern for the genres of non-fiction cinema.  While theaters can be seen touting The Magdalene Sisters as “based on a true story” and other similar films can be misleading in their representation of fact at least as far as their promotion and marketing goes, Shattered Glass is strikingly feigning if not ironic.   

"I've got this amazing true story about a whiny little brat who grew up to be the most hated villain in the galaxy."