Five Minutes of Heaven (2009)

Directed by: Oliver Hirschbiegel | 90 minutes | drama, thriller, crime | Actors: Liam Neeson, James Nesbitt, Anamaria Marinca, Mark David, Diarmuid Noyes, Niamh Cusack, Mathew McElhinney, Conor MacNeill, Paul Garret, Gerard Jordan, Paula McFetridge, Gerry Doherty, Luke O’Reilly, Luke McEvoy, Ruth Mathewson, Carol Moore, Richard Orr, Richard Dormer, Pauline Hutton, Andrea Irvine, Katy Gleadhill, Paul Kennedy, Juliet Crawford, Jonathan Harden, Lalor Roddy, Daniel McClean, Emma Neill, Stella McCusker, Amber O’Doherty, Louis Rolston

Oliver Hirschbiegel is a brave man. In 2004, the director granted human traits to Adolf Hitler (‘Der Untergang’) and garnered controversy, hatred, admiration and praise. In 2009, the German again showed courage by making a film about a subject that has already yielded a lot of high-quality (film) art: Ireland and its bloody 20th century. What else can a German director add to ‘Bloody Sunday’, ‘Michael Collins’, ‘Hunger’, ‘The Wind that Shakes the Barley’ and ‘Omagh’?

A universal theme, Hirschbiegel must have thought. ‘Five Minutes of Heaven’ is less about the Irish conflict than about guilt, penance and redemption. And about the human tendency to prefer short-term success to lasting happiness. In ‘Five Minutes of Heaven’, Alistair Little gets five heavenly minutes when he attacks an innocent Catholic. He and the victim’s brother will be burdened by this act for the rest of his life. What might help is a confrontation.

Clear story, fascinating theme, but it doesn’t make for an interesting film. ‘Five Minutes of Heaven’ never knows which way it will go. After the successful first act, an ominous mini mosaic in the ‘Omagh’ trend, two lesser acts follow. Where the first act is limited to a tight reconstruction of the attack, the second act is a mess. A bit of revenge film, a bit of psychological drama, a bit of satire (about modern media). This makes the film never really exciting. Or deep. Or comical. Moreover, in the second act there is a lot of talking but hardly anything said. The third act is a rushed climax, where we have to believe in a purification that can never be felt.

The characters are not convincing either. Joe Griffin is sometimes an obsessed lunatic, sometimes a depressed slum dweller, sometimes a funny bourgeois man. With Alistair Little it never becomes clear how a fanatical and unscrupulous boy can turn into the Irish incarnation of Gandhi. Because the film jumps in one go from 1975 to 2009, you as a viewer miss the development of the characters and you have to believe what you see.

Against all those negatives are Neeson’s good playing, a successful atmosphere drawing of the 70s and the presence of AnaMaria Marinca. That is not enough, especially for a Hirschbiegel film. The German is again not lacking in courage and good intentions. Well in direction.