Alistair Little, a Protestant, was 17 years old in 1975 when he stood on a street in Lurgan, Northern Ireland, and fired a pistol through a flat window, killing 19-year-old Jim Griffin, a Catholic. Joe Griffin, his younger brother, watched Little.
That's how "Five Minutes of Heaven," a taut, gripping film, based on the real killing, begins. Little, desperate to be accepted as a gang member, had volunteered to carry out a killing, and Griffin was the unfortunate victim.
We then cut to an automobile. It is 33 years later and Little, played by the always excellent Liam Neeson, is being driven to a made-for-TV event at which he and Joe Griffin will meet and be interviewed. James Nesbitt, equal to Neeson in this film, is Griffin, still wanting revenge. Director Oliver Hirschbiegel handles the buildup in superior style. Nesbitt is in one car, accompanied only by a driver. Neeson is in another, and as the men drive to their meeting, we learn a great deal about them, especially the fact that Griffin has been badly damaged because his mother blamed him for Jim Griffin's death. Little has been released from prison after serving 24 years.
When they arrive at the filming site, the men, who have been fraying at the seams for the entire ride, are ready to come apart. We learn that Griffin is carrying a knife. Conversation with a production assistant is forced and moves in fits and starts. Griffin, nervous as the proverbial, and cinematic, cat on a hot tin roof, is filmed as he walks downstairs toward the meeting room. Something interrupts the shot. They have to do it again. . . .
There's more, and both Neesom and Nesbitt offer exciting portrayals. A good, tense movie, from a fine screenplay by Guy Hibbert.
At the Tivoli.
–Joe