Joan or Cate?

Having sat through both When the Sky Falls and Veronica Guerin I feel Joan's version is the better. Joan plays a more realistic character in a more realistic, less stilted world. But to be honest neither would rate as a great film. Both are too bleak - although there is a more upbeat ending to the second film you are still left with the feeling that after 8 years the drug situation in Dublin will just be as bad as in 1996.

Oddly many of the scenes of the later film seem a direct copy of the first e.g. where she visits the leading drug baron and is beaten up and threatened.

Also Patrick Bergin plays one of his best roles in Joan's version - a tough cop plagued by inept chiefs and a lack of funding. And there was hardly any mention of the IRA in the second even though they are reportedly very tough on drug dealers (as shown in the first film where they are organising demos and attacking dealers).

It is also surprising that an Irish actress could not play the role of one of possibly few recent Irish heroines.