Plot Details: This opinion reveals minor details about the movie's plot.

Oliver Hirschbiegel (born in 1957) is German film-maker of the generation after the German New Wave most interested in examining histories of violence: the 2001 "Das Experiment," the 2004 "Downfall," and the 2009 "Five Minutes of Heaven." The title of the most recent of these refers to the brief euphoria following a cold-blooded killing, before consequences and guilt flow.

I don't think that the 17-year-old Belfast Protestant (UVF) terrorist, Alistair Little (played by Mark David) had that five minutes back in 1975 when he shot a Catholic worker and did not shoot the man's younger brother, Joe Griffin (Kevin O'Neill) who was playing kicking a soccer ball against the wall in the street.

The phrase is the fantasy of Joe 33 years later, played by James Nesbitt (Bloody Sunday) imagining killing Alistair, who served an adult sentence in prison and now conducts workshops on coming to terms with the violence of civil wars around the world. Joe's mother blamed Joe for doing nothing but staring at the man with the gun. His load of guilt is exceeded by the adult Alistair, as embodied by Liam Neeson (Michael Collins, Rob Roy, Schindler's List).

A television crew is set to film the two men meeting 33 years after the killing. The movie shows that "truth and reconciliation" is very, very, very difficult—for killers as well as for survivors.
T
he adolescent terrorist grown up to facing "political" violence with other killers is not presented as a  down-on-his-luck killer (on an epic scale) now (literally!) an underdog, as "Downfall" seemed to me to do. Though filled with compassion, Alistair can defend himself against physical attack.

I don't want to reveal anything about what happens in the last two-thirds of the movie (the 2008 part). Both Neeson and Nesbitt turn in  performances that convinced me. The only other character(in the adult/2008 part of the movie) who matters is a runner played by Anamaria Marinca (4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days).


The DVD includes a trailer and a 5-minute making-of featurette that is de facto a trailer, but with brief statements from Neeson, Nesbitt, producer Stephen Wright, and Hirschbiegel.

Though not cracking my best films of 2009 list, I'm surprised that I heard nothing of this movie nor any award buzz for Neeson last year. i think that Hirschbiegel has shown the agonies of getting over past murders (etc.) that plays out in many places in addition to Ulster (but not in the US where truth about official misdeeds remain top secret no matter which party is in power).

©2010, Stephen O. Murray

This German director's Irish movie is in English, but I needed subtitles for most everyone except Neeson's lines. Whether Irish English is a foreign language, this is a foreign film for Foshizzlee’s foreign film writeoff.

Recommended: Yes