Review of Five Minutes of Heaven (2009) by Budge B — 13 Apr 2009

Five Minutes of HeavenLiam Neeson and James Nesbitt play two men from opposite sides of Northern Ireland's sectarian curtain, one a former teenage assassin, the other brother and passive witness to his brother's murder.

They're working class lads from a small town - Lurgan has a population of less than 40,000. They're lives were destined to be spent in the routine of working in a factory and raising a family, but their lives have been perverted by their situation and by one insignificant murder ? insignificant, that is, to everyone outside their immediate families.

Now, 33 years later, they are brought together again by a television crew keen to give the murder significance by presenting this spectacle of truth and reconciliation to a receptive audience. The former assassin is, by now, well versed in his role as reformed murderer and recalcitrant advocate for peace and understanding.

The bereaved brother finds himself thrust into the guise of potential celebrity victim.The media anticipate a spectacle, the two men are consumed by their internal monologues, the teenage killer now the ageing residue of the creature he was, the witness to the killing a man imprisoned by his own nightmares.

The teenage killer was just a young lad, concerned like all young lads with his appearance, girls, music, and his pals, consumed by a desire to be somebody, to acquire status. The only status open to working class lads is the status of gunmen - the old men orchestrate the violence, the young soldiers flow off the production line of bitterness and desolate expectation.

He and his pals egg one another on, professionally aware of guns and terrorist warfare at too young an age. Their heroes are gunmen, their aspiration to be gunmen.Just an ordinary street in an ordinary little town where everybody knows everybody despite the sectarianism.

Just an ordinary murder of an ordinary young man who happens to be in the wrong place and a child of his times.The two men turn up for their meeting in suits. Working class lads only wear suits for weddings and funerals.

Do the suits sanctify them, divorce them from the harsh emotions which define their lives? They're going to meet as media images, icons of their situations; the film will strip them of their individuality and cast them only as stereotypes, dressed in suits for respectability's sake.

The film people are smooth and certain of their liberal tolerance, but they are manipulators, careless of their language, and ultimately careless of the two men they are filming.Nesbitt delivers humour bitterly, gallows humour, survival humour, ironic and severe.

He's known too much introspection since childhood. Histrionic, intense, an emotional prisoner of memories and recrimination. Neeson, experienced, professional media performer, trying to submerge his past in public humility.

He's well rehearsed, speaking lines he knows too well, speaking them loud enough and often enough to drown out his own emotions. Where do your sympathies lie? Can you empathise with either or both?But he makes this a universal tale, not unique to Northern Ireland.

He's from a small town in a small country, but his voice could be that of any survivor from any conflict. He is playing to the audience of reason, delivering a superficial truth which the converted will hear but which the gunmen of the world will not, and which will not be allowed to infect the next generation of young soldiers.

Superb performances from two gifted actors. Neeson has great physical presence, Nesbitt's emotional grasp is so powerful. An utterly engrossing and convincing screenplay by Guy Hibbert, and an utterly superb film.

If you do not shed a tear watching this, weep for yourself.