Cate Blanchett portrays the courageous but some say foolish investigative crime reporter, Veronica Guerin, who ended up a martyr to convict drug dealers and revise drug law loopholes in Ireland. Before her death, the drug kingpins in Ireland didn't have to report the source of their income, making it nearly impossible to convict them or to trace the source of the drug trade.

Disturbed by the soaring rate of drug deaths of children in Dublin housing projects, and originally trained as an accountant, Veronica Guerin searched through tax records of suspected drug pushers who are comfortably removed from the violence in their plush country estates. This led to her murder in June, 1996.

Throughout the movie, my friend kept saying to the screen, "Get the kid out of the country." A biography of Veronica Guerin written by Emily O'Reilly similarly questions whether enough was done to keep Ms. Guerin's son safe after threats by criminals.

After the movie, the viewer is left with the question, "Was it worth her life?" Was it worth depriving her son of a mother?