Five Minutes of Heaven is a gritty drama exploring the trouble in Northern Ireland. Stars Liam Neeson.
The story begins in 1975 when 17-year-old Alistair Little, a member of the UVF (a Northern Irish paramililtary group), murdered a 19-year-old Catholic, Jim Griffin, in Lurgan. It was witnessed by Jim's younger brother, Joe. Thirty years later Joe Griffin (James Nesbitt) and Alistair (Neeson) are set up to meet, on camera and arranged by the media. The aim is to reconcile, but Joe has different motives.
For a film that picked up a couple of awards at the uber-trendy Sundance film festival, Five Minutes of Heaven is a pretty bland albeit solid piece of work.
It starts out promisingly: a murder is shot in a muted, minimalist tone that doesn’t glamourise the on screen violence but reels you in with expressive sound design, turning atmospheric noises into a soundscape of genuine tension. The remainder of the film though fails to consistently deliver on its strong opening.
While the actors more than step up to the mark, with James Nesbitt’s jittery, psychologically crumbling victim finding its perfect foil in the sad melancholy of Liam Neeson’s repentant murderer, structural flaws in the script prevent a superbly performed dramatic duel from reaching its full potential. It appears more concerned with superfluous voiceovers and snippets of flashback than exploring the conflict at the heart of the story. As a result, the middle section sags and surrenders much of its narrative momentum. In a strange move, it also shifts the viewer's sympathies to Neeson’s killer.
Five Minutes of Heaven gets a second wind in time for a decent climatic sequence and for the most part gets its personal healing and terrorism related message across, but it never rises above the level of a mixed bag.
By Andreas Heinemann, Flicks.co.nz
The movie was boring and not interesting at all. I had to keep waking my partner up. Don't recommend this movie at all. Poor quality movie for two good actors,
Based on a true story -- that never happened. That might explain why the film circles and circles its subject but never strikes dramatic pay dirt.
A feature-length talkathon built on a sketchy premise, some unpersuasive psychology, a pinch of politics and strong star turns from Liam Neeson and James Nesbitt, the appeal of all those words runs out long before the director Oliver Hirschbiegel turns off the spigot.
Troubled pasts relived once the last bullet is fired.
An imperfect but intensely human movie that ponders the aftershock of violence, could have been an exercise in overacted sappiness. Instead, it's as hard and uncompromising as remorse.
Half-truth and reconciliation are the driving forces behind this powerful drama from the writer of Omagh (Guy Hibbert), which takes a real-life tragedy as the starting point for a hard-hitting exploration of Northern Ireland’s troubled past and uneasy future.
We've been told the NZ release date for this flick is Thursday, 17th Dec 2009.
Release date: December 17th 2009.
We haven't received times for this movie in this location yet. However these are updated as cinemas announce them, so check back soon. Hopefully the lovely cinemas in your location will choose to play it shortly. ~Ed.
