While Joel Schumacher's "Veronica Guerin" upholds the memory of the assassinated Irish journalist and her principled fight against Dublin druglords, "Shattered Glass" takes a serious look at the other end of the moral spectrum: Stephen Glass was the 26-year-old reporter who disgraced The New Republic in 1998 by publishing a series of fictive articles--eight years before Jayson Blair invented his facts on the front page of the New York Times.
In the role of the misguided prodigy journalist is Hayden Christensen, otherwise known as the angry teenager who will grow up to become Darth Vader. Once again, Christensen's aggressive intelligence serves him well in a morally slippery role. His transformation from a lovable, flustered star reporter into a compulsive liar addicted to the thrill of acclaim is the real reason to see "Shattered Glass."
Of course, the film didn't have to stop where it did. Its real third act is still happening: Just this spring, Stephen Glass published a novel about his time at the New Republic, in the tradition of the tell-all accounts which are usually enough to attain redemption in the public eye.
If only Veronica Guerin had that option.
