Five Minutes of Heaven (2009)

People are voting emotionally.

Just perfect...

Great Film overall

As Good As It Gets

After reading some reviews on this film i was really expecting a lot more than what I got. It felt more like a itv programme than a film.The film deals with guilt and forgiveness, and shows the harsh reality of how both of these feelings effect people. After a long, dragged out piece of the film the two finally meet and I suppose acceptance from both of them happens where they can both move on.Before they met i just expected more tension, and it was all a bit of an anti climax.I suppose it shows that the innocent person can become the more angry and aggressive one out of the two, while the one who committed the murder was full of gulit and remorse for his actions, the victim was very bitter and angry, but the film went to show that meeting actually did them both good and gave them both the release and acceptance to move on with their lifes.

Five Minutes of Heaven (2009)I have a confession--when the movie started I thought, okay, another pro-IRA movie with a heart. And it's not--it's a beautifully balanced movie about the personal horrors of the Northern Ireland bloodshed and the longterm aftermath as participants struggle to keep going.The two main actors are both from Northern Ireland. Liam Neeson plays a Protestant who as a teenage killed a Catholic worker as part of the tit-for-tat violence of the time. James Nesbitt, a Roman Catholic, plays the brother of the man who was killed, and as a witness to the crime he holds a deep grudge about the murder. And in a key act of political insight, the actors were born on the opposite sides--Neeson was raised Catholic and Nesbitt raised Protestant. The theme of the film is reconciliation in the mold of South African leader Nelson Mandela. The core of the movie is shot in a fancy Irish mansion where television crews are going to watch as the two men, mortal enemies decades before, make an effort to somehow move on, in public, on t.v.How it goes is for you to see. The murder in the 1970s is fact, easy enough to believe, and the meeting of the men is fiction. Nesbitt is utterly terrific. You might think he's overacting (he is, of course, overacting) but it's appropriate, and gives this non-action film some intensity. Neeson is strong in his restraint and in the one main scene where he gives a well-written speech about how to understand these horrors he is also terrific.The filming is extremely simple and in fact the whole scenario is relatively linear, even with all the flashbacks. There are some turns to the events by the last half hour, and in a way this is both the dramatic high and the disappointing low of the film (it resorts to somewhat corny and not quite smartly filmed sequences I won't elaborate). But overall the point is so strong and well meant it's hard to worry too much about whether it's a masterpiece. It's not. It's sometimes slow, it says stuff we probably have absorbed pretty well by now, and it isn't very complex. But what it does do it does with compassion and conviction.

Those are not my words. However, they're a good titular fit for this brave film.Finally one filmmaker chose to take a closer look. And then he had the courage to expose the human aftermath of terrorist deeds. In this case, the setting is Northern Ireland, near the capitol, Belfast. For sure many of us are well familiar with the sectarian violence that gripped the emerald isle, long as I can remember.And for decades the international media gave us frequent snapshots of the 'progress'. We either saw the bloody carnage scene of a pub blown up by the Provos or we were transported to cemetery. There the grief stricken members of a Catholic family laid to rest one of their own. Usually it was a young male Catholic, 'freedom fighter' if you will.Most likely he suffered a violent fate. And no doubt he was murdered by the IRA's sworn enemies: the Protestant Orangemen. These Brit zealots usually banded together in select (and outlawed) groups. Two organizations featured prominent: the UVF (Ulster Volunteer Force) or the RUC (Royal Ulster Constabulary).In the film, Alistair Little (Liam Neeson) sides with the Protestants. Why not? He's born there. He's one of them. Then as a teenager he volunteers to join their 'cause'. As an act of loyalty he murders in cold blood, a Catholic contractor. The victim's younger brother, Joe Griffen, witnessed the brutal scene.James Nesbitt portrays the lad, now grown to man size almost 30 years later. At the behest of an Irish TV program, Nesbitt agrees to meet the murderer. They would chronicle and film the emotion charged 'live' meeting.Still plagued by guilt of not warning his slain brother, Nesbitt lacks the courage to follow through. Moreover, he has serious doubts about the 'reconciliation' process. Northern Ireland isn't South Africa.Liam Neeson too suffers from guilt over his earlier life. Even though he was incarcerated for 11 years he's not convinced that fact or act of contrition will placate Nesbitt. He too has doubts about this encounter.This film explores their eventual impromptu mano-y-mano meeting later. That occurs late in the film after the original planned,orchestrated televised 'interview' failed. With much pain filled emotional depth we the viewers are called to witness the latter tumultuous event.With as much sensitivity as they could possibly serve, the producers and the director handled all the scenes as true professionals. Still, they did not shirk their duty to broader humanity either. They let it all play out: the good, the bad and the all too ugly.And I'm glad they chose that 'honest' tact. Anything less would have been, well, fluff.One final note...Both Neeson and Nesbitt gave stirring, moving performances in reprising their real life characters.Bravo...

I'm writing this review to state that having counseled people who've committed murder, I think this film rings true. Both characters are portrayed with psychological accuracy. I also thought the film was quite suspenseful, since we know at some point there is going to be a confrontation, but we don't know when or exactly how. This type of real-life suspense is much more nerve-wracking than a contrived chase scene with fake explosions in a Hollywoood movie.I'm not an expert on Irish history so I can't critique the film from that angle. I'm not sure whether it matters as this type of story could take place in the setting of any of many conflicts.