Five Minutes of Heaven Blu-ray offers solid video and audio in this enjoyable Blu-ray release
Lurgan Northern Ireland, 1975. A low level civil war has been underway, with the IRA targeting British
loyalists and the
loyalist Ulster Volunteer Force exacting revenge on Catholics they claim are militant republicans. Alistair
Little, 16 is the
leader of a UVF cell, eager to be blooded. He and his gang are given the go ahead to kill a young Catholic
man, James
Griffin, as a reprisal and a warning to others. When the hit is carried out, Joe Griffin - the 11-year old little
brother of the
target - watches in horror his brother is shot in the head. Thirty years later Joe Griffin and Alistair are to
meet, on camera,
with a view to reconciliation. Alistair has served his sentence, and peace may have been agreed to in N.
Ireland, but Joe
Griffin is not coming on the program for a handshake. Unbeknownst to the production team, he intends to
stick a knife in
his brother's killer - live on air.
To this day, they're called "The Troubles," a euphemism if there ever was one. For over thirty
years, Northern Ireland's Catholic
separatists and Protestant loyalists—both essentially paramilitary terrorist organizations—
skirmished with one another, catching
the general public in the crossfire. By the time Northern Ireland got The Troubles off its collective
chest—with the Belfast "Good
Friday" Agreement of 1998—over 3,500 civilians and part-time soldiers had been killed. Several
recent films have tried to
metaphorically parse the overarching, socio-political complexities of the conflict by focusing on
intensely personal stories, the
specificity making their themes more universal. After all, there's not much that non-Irish
audiences can relate to in a film
that's broadly about a cultural quarrel that dates back to the 1600s, but we can certainly find
points of reference in more
closely focused stories about individual revenge, loyalty, and redemption. Perhaps the most
successful has been director/artist
Steve McQueen's Hunger, an extremely visual and experiential recreation of Republican
Army member Bobby Sands'
fatal 1981 hunger strike. While not as intimate or emotionally impacting, director Oliver
Hirschbiegel's Five Minutes of
Heaven—which examines the consequences of murder on two men's lives—is just as
thematically potent.
"For me to talk about the man I've become," says Alistair Little (Liam Neeson), "you need to know
about the man I was."
We hear this in voice-over as a younger, 17-year-old Little mentally pumps himself up in front of
his bedroom mirror. It's
1975, The Troubles are at a troublesome peak, and Little—the fresh-faced leader of a Protestant,
Ulster Volunteer Force
cadre—has just received his first killing orders. He's to make an example out of Jim Griffin (Gerard
Jordan), a 19-year-old
Roman Catholic roustabout, to illustrate what happens when Protestant workers get harassed
down at the docks. The fact
that Griffin himself never did any of the harassing is completely dismissed by Little and his gang;
clearly, someone
has to pay. Jump suits and ski masks are donned, the crew creeps up to Griffin's house in a stolen
car, and Little fires the
fatal shots through the living room window. Griffin's 11-year-old brother, Joe, who had been
kicking a soccer ball outside,
witnesses it all.
We fast-forward 33 years. Little served 12 years in prison for his crime and is now a kind of anti-
violence spokesman and
counselor, helping wife beaters and other violent offenders get a grip on their anger. Joe Griffin
(James Nesbitt), on the other
hand, is an utter wreck of a man. Long blamed by his mother for failing to stop Little, his rage has
festered for three decades
and he's hell bent on retribution. Revenge may be a dish best served cold, but Griffin's emotionally
boiling, mental pressure
cooker is ready to burst. Both Little and Griffin have agreed to participate in a Dateline-
style television program
aimed at promoting reconciliation, but Griffin's intentions are more sinister. The show is being
filmed at a massive estate,
and while Little candidly discusses "the man he was" for the cameras downstairs, Griffin paces
along the rooftop balustrade,
waiting to meet his brother's murderer, a cigarette perpetually cradled in his hand and a dagger
neatly concealed under his
suit jacket.
This takes us up to the second act, and to reveal any more—as the film's trailer does, beware—
would ruin the Hitchcockian
suspense that the director sustains all the way up until an ending that feels a bit rushed in its
attempt to shoehorn some
release and redemption into a story that, in real life, probably wouldn't have any. There are
moments of horror-movie-like
tension, as Hirschbiegel—who directed Downfall, the terrific account of Hitler's last days—
lets out some slack with a
few misdirects before rapidly reeling us in. Having Little and Griffin in the same house, but not able
to see one another, is a
brilliant move, allowing us to observe how inherently different the two men are as they prepare for
their meeting. Little is
calm, almost emotionally detached—we get the sense that a good part of his soul has died over
the years—and he's curiously
concerned for Griffin's mental well-being. As he should be. Griffin is a bundle of nerves, sweating,
chain-smoking, and
spouting resentment-filled diatribes to whoever will listen, in this case, a kindly production
assistant (Anamaria Marinca).
Interestingly, Five Minutes of Heaven's period piece first act is quite accurately based on
an actual murder. Both
Alistair Little and Joe Griffin are real people, and screenwriter Guy Hibbert interviewed them—
separately—to get a feel for
what would happen if the two were ever to meet. The remainder of the film, then, is a
hypothetical projection of such an
event, an effectively speculative "what if?" device.
The film's core concern is the mental and emotional toll exacted by grief, self-loathing regret, and
irreconcilable anger. This is
no new story, but Five Minutes of Heaven works as a character study, mostly because
Neeson and Nesbitt give
terrifically rounded performances. Neeson's sad, noble face engenders empathy to begin with, and
though we're initially not
sure what to make of his character—he is a murderer after all—he slowly comes through as
quietly broken and genuinely
sorry. Neeson is the film's anchor, letting Nesbitt fly off like a kite in some mad wind, loosening his
tongue for emotionally
unstable monologues and generally acting like a lunatic. Nesbitt's stiff gait and wild-eyed delivery
borders, at times, on the
comic, but appropriately so, as his character is right on that edge between pathetically funny and
unpredictably insane. His
face is a screwed up mix of anger, disgust, and disbelief, and he perpetually looks like he's a split-
second away from punching
someone in the face or throwing a chair through a window. When the two men inevitably meet,
it's as explosive—and futile
—as you'd expect. Where the film falters is in its cop-out of an ending. The denouement makes
sense, but it does feel
somewhat forced and too-tidy, a not-so-satisfying attempt to bring closure to these two men and
the broader conflict that
they represent.
IFC brings Five Minutes of Heaven from British television (and a few international
screenings) to Blu-ray with a suitable
1080p/AVC-encoded transfer, framed in the film's original 1.85:1 aspect ratio. Shot on 16mm
stock, Heaven has an
appropriately gritty and grainy texture that works especially well to give the flashbacks to "The
Troubles" a convincingly vintage
feel. It's not as sharp as a film shot on 35mm—textures are not as refined, and the finest details
are lost in the diminished
analog resolution—but I quite like the general look cinematographer Ruairi O'Brien has achieved.
The color palette is
intentionally bleak, with a predominance of drab neutrals, muted primaries, and skin tones that fall
on the pallid side. At times,
the picture has an almost cross-processed, expired film look, with a slight bluish cast and highlights
that are closer to yellow
than white. Where this transfer gets into a little bit of trouble is its black levels. You'll often notice
crush—where shadow details
have been obliterated—but at the same time, blacks have a hazy, not-as-inky-as-they-could-be
quality. On the technical front,
the encode looks solid, with no overt compression or transfer issues—barring some spikes in noise
during the darker scenes—
and no hints of DNR or edge enhancement. The print is in good shape, though I did notice a few
white specks here and there.
The main audio offering for Five Minutes of Heaven is a well-equipped DTS-HD Master Audio
5.1 surround track. As the
film is heavy on monologuing and verbal confrontation, dialogue is at the forefront here, presented
cleanly and perfectly
volume-balanced in the mix. Joe talks to himself a lot, and at times the world grows hushed—like
shellshock—while he
internally harps on and on about revenge. Some of the audio effects can be slightly heavy handed—
as when the director tries
to spook us with jarring noises—but considering the limited sonic palette, it all comes together fairly
well. I especially liked the
atmospheric, almost ghostly score by David Holmes—who also wrote the music for for Steve
McQueen's Hunger—which relies
on deep bass, reverb-soaked guitar, and propulsive throbbings. It sounds excellent when you turn it
up. The surround channels
are used quietly, but effectively throughout, putting out environmental ambience, bled music, and
even one or two cross-
channel movements. A PCM 2.0 fold-down is also available, but if you have the capabilities you'll
definitely want to stay with
the more immersive surround track. Optional English SDH and Spanish subtitles are available, and
appear in bright yellow
lettering at the bottom of the frame.
Behind the Scenes (SD, 4:39)
Too short to be of much interest, this is really more of a promo than a "making of" style documentary.
We get brief interviews
with the writer, director, and stars, plus a few spoilers in the form of over revealing footage from the
film. Don't watch this
before watching the movie.
Good, but not great, Five Minutes of Heaven joins the pantheon of films devoted to
"The Troubles" and tells a
fairly gripping personal drama in the process, with strong performances from Liam Neeson and James
Nesbitt. Pair
Heaven with Steve McQueen's Hunger and you've got a bleak, historically riveting,
and emotionally
devastating double feature. Specs for the Blu-ray are solid as well. Casually recommended.
