Film Reviews

Five Minutes of Heaven

• Rating:
• Director: Oliver Hirschbiegel.
• Starring: Liam Neeson, James Nesbitt.
• Details: UK / Ireland / 90mins (15A).

Catholic Joe Griffen (Nesbitt) is nervous. As part of a one-on-one documentary series, he's about to meet the man who shot his brother in 1973. The jittery Griffen pulls hard on a cigarette, pacing the hotel room minutes before he meets the man who has made the last 33 years of his life hell. Downstairs, former UVA soldier Alistair Little (Neeson) waits patiently in front of the camera; the now reformed Little has done time for his crime and has toured institutions, giving talks on how to live with such a heavy guilt. He tells the director that Griffen won’t want to shake his hand and that reconciliation is far from his mind. Little's right - Griffen wants revenge and is using the documentary to get close to his brother's killer. He slips a knife into his suit pocket and moves downstairs, determined to have his five minutes of heaven... Written by Guy Hibbert, who tread similar ground in Omagh, and directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel, whose Downfall took a hard look at the lasting damage unchecked hatred can do, Five Minutes Of Heaven tackles a tough subject, still very raw in many people's minds, with a natural ease. It's a film of contrasts - forgoing the obvious differences in backgrounds, there's Neeson's quiet but haunted delivery vs. Nesbitt's fidgety awkwardness. An occasionally top-drawer film, inconsistencies let the side down, however. Maybe the director is making a point about the feelings discussed but his film feels unfinished. It's also a tad lopsided, with over half the running time donated to the flashback to the 1973 Lurgan killing and the one-on-one documentary; the second half is about the two characters meeting face-to-face. The film has a set up and denouement but its second act is light. To get inside Griffen's mind, Hibbert's script uses a voiceover but also has him talking to himself - surely one or the other would have been better, no? Griffen's character, too, is contradictory: he wavers from shy, almost simple-minded type to full on hatred and back again. Saying that, the perfect flashback intro sees Hirschbeigel fully realising the era and brings to life what it meant to be involved, but helpless, in the troubles.

Review by Gavin Burke