Review of When the Sky Falls (2000) by Jim M — 30 Sep 2009

Dublin, Ireland 1996: Journalist Sinead Hamilton has begun a series of articals on the Dublin Heroin trade and the men behind it. The Heroin dealers are muscling in on the "Ordinary Decient Criminals" and the letting the IRA take the blame for the murders, well the police are powerless restrained by laws that favour the criminals who flaunt them. Driven to protect her own child Sinead begins a crusade to rid Dublin of the smack dealers, aided by a cop at the end of his teether, and a shady contact from within the Dublin underworld, but every Crusader paints a target on his or her own back.

Based on the life and murder of Irish Crime Reporter Veronica Guerin in 1996 When the Sky Falls is a gritty story about an insperational woman and the men who killed her. Stripping away Hollywood romanticsm Hamilton (played by Joan Allen) is played as a driven woman but not without her doubts and fears. Patrick Bergen plays Mackie the cop who helps Hamilton and fumes at the system that ties his hands (he mentions soending 5 years putting away a drug smuggler who gets sentenced to 10, reduced to 5 for good behavior and paroled after 2 who then returns to smuggling drugs) and finds he's forced to bend the letter of the law to preserve its spirit. Well acted, suffers a bit from its low budget and it earns its R rating, the activities and crimes of the Heroin smugglers arn't softened (nor is the IRA's response to them). A must see.