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Review: Five Minutes of Heaven

Or, rather, 90 minutes of tension
By BRETT MICHEL  |  September 23, 2009
3.0 3.0 Stars

 

Forget the title of Oliver (Downfall) Hirschbiegel's film — that's 90 minutes of tension up there on screen. It's all a bit fragmented and stagy — which is perhaps unavoidable, since the story begins with a murder in Northern Ireland in 1975 and cuts to a present-day meeting between the perpetrator and the brother of the victim in a reconciliation that's shown on British television.

But it's easy to see what attracted Liam Neeson and James Nesbitt (Bloody Sunday) to Prime Suspect veteran Guy Hibbert's screenplay: it's an actor's showcase. The 1975 scenes offer the bloody violence of a hit methodically carried out by Alistair Little (Mark Davison), the 16-year-old leader of a UVF cell, but the psychological scars of the grown Alistair (Neeson) and Joe Griffen (Nesbitt), who was just 11 when his brother was gunned down before his eyes, make the most lacerating impact. It's all underscored by David Holmes's pulsating music.

Related: Review: Ponyo, Review: Paris, Review: Taken, More more >
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ARTICLES BY BRETT MICHEL
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  •   REVIEW: FIVE MINUTES OF HEAVEN  |  September 23, 2009
    It's easy to see what attracted Liam Neeson and James Nesbitt ( Bloody Sunday ) to Prime Suspect veteran Guy Hibbert's screenplay: it's an actor's showcase.
  •   REVIEW: LOVE HAPPENS  |  September 23, 2009
    Half an hour into the screening of this tearjerker from Brandon Camp, three women exited. They made the right choice.
  •   REVIEW: STILL WALKING  |  September 16, 2009
    By now, it's a bit of a cliché to compare the work of Hirokazu Koreeda to the masterful films of Yasujiro Ozu — something of which I've certainly been guilty.
  •   REVIEW: BETTY BLUE, THE DIRECTOR'S CUT  |  September 09, 2009
    "I had known Betty for a week," a voiceover intones. The voice is that of Zorg (Jean-Hugues Anglade), an unpublished novelist, whom we see fucking Betty (Béatrice Dalle in a star-making turn) in the slow zoom that serves as the opening shot of Jean-Jacques Beineix's well-remembered contribution to erotic cinema.
  •   REVIEW: 9  |  September 09, 2009
    "Why is 6 afraid of 7? Because 7-8-9!" Although the logic of this riddle may puzzle adults, the word- (or number-) play slays 'em in the schoolyard.

 See all articles by: BRETT MICHEL

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