Die Geschichte des ehemaligen UVF-Mitglieds Alistair Little. Fünfundzwanzig Jahre nachdem Little Joe Griffens Bruder getötet hat, arrangieren die Medien ein glückliches Treffen zwischen den ... Alles lesenDie Geschichte des ehemaligen UVF-Mitglieds Alistair Little. Fünfundzwanzig Jahre nachdem Little Joe Griffens Bruder getötet hat, arrangieren die Medien ein glückliches Treffen zwischen den beiden.Die Geschichte des ehemaligen UVF-Mitglieds Alistair Little. Fünfundzwanzig Jahre nachdem Little Joe Griffens Bruder getötet hat, arrangieren die Medien ein glückliches Treffen zwischen den beiden.
- 1 BAFTA Award gewonnen
- 10 Gewinne & 12 Nominierungen insgesamt
- Young Alistair Little - 1975
- (as Mark Davison)
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I have a confession--when the movie started I thought, okay, another pro-IRA movie with a heart. And it's not--it's a beautifully balanced movie about the personal horrors of the Northern Ireland bloodshed and the longterm aftermath as participants struggle to keep going.
The two main actors are both from Northern Ireland. Liam Neeson plays a Protestant who as a teenage killed a Catholic worker as part of the tit-for-tat violence of the time. James Nesbitt, a Roman Catholic, plays the brother of the man who was killed, and as a witness to the crime he holds a deep grudge about the murder. And in a key act of political insight, the actors were born on the opposite sides--Neeson was raised Catholic and Nesbitt raised Protestant.
The theme of the film is reconciliation in the mold of South African leader Nelson Mandela. The core of the movie is shot in a fancy Irish mansion where television crews are going to watch as the two men, mortal enemies decades before, make an effort to somehow move on, in public, on t.v.
How it goes is for you to see. The murder in the 1970s is fact, easy enough to believe, and the meeting of the men is fiction. Nesbitt is utterly terrific. You might think he's overacting (he is, of course, overacting) but it's appropriate, and gives this non-action film some intensity. Neeson is strong in his restraint and in the one main scene where he gives a well-written speech about how to understand these horrors he is also terrific.
The filming is extremely simple and in fact the whole scenario is relatively linear, even with all the flashbacks. There are some turns to the events by the last half hour, and in a way this is both the dramatic high and the disappointing low of the film (it resorts to somewhat corny and not quite smartly filmed sequences I won't elaborate). But overall the point is so strong and well meant it's hard to worry too much about whether it's a masterpiece.
It's not. It's sometimes slow, it says stuff we probably have absorbed pretty well by now, and it isn't very complex. But what it does do it does with compassion and conviction.
This film is a fiction inspired by two men who bear the legacy of one of those killings.......
That is the opening salvo from the makers of Five Minutes of Heaven, I would personally like to add, since no other reviewer here has said it thus far, that the two protagonists never met in real life.
Five Minutes of Heaven was first screened at the Sundance festival in 2009 and won awards for Directing {Oliver Hirschbiegel} and for screen writing {Guy Hibbert}. It stars Liam Neeson as Alistair Little and James Nesbitt as Joe Griffen. The story is about how a young wannabe hero of the Ulster Volunteer Force {Little} gunned down the brother of Joe Griffen {Nesbitt}, purely because he was of Catholic religion, all witnessed by young soccer ball kicking Joe out on the pavement in front of the Griffen house. After the build up and execution of the crime, we forward to the future after Little has served 12 years prison for the murder, and here we now have a television company led meeting between the two after the Good Friday Peace Agreement.
It's only now that the film really kicks in as a powerful piece that has something to say. Too many third rate productions caricature their characters in films involving the British/Irish troubles, but the makers here are keen to avoid that-hence the appearance of Neeson, who wouldn't have come cheap one feels. Both Nesbitt {ranking along side George Best as most talented thing to come out of Northern Ireland} and Neeson then shift gears to ram home the point of the story. This is about forgiveness, pertinent questions about if that is possible under the most trying of circumstances. Would you be able to move on? And at what cost? Both sides of the coin are deftly rubbed by Hirschbiegel and his terrific cast.
It would be stupid of me to not say the piece has problems since it clearly isn't perfect. Both sides of the families involved are not formed at all, and that is without a doubt a very big misstep. Probably a victim of course of the TV movie production value and the sadly inept running time afforded it. But that annoyance aside, and in the context of the final product.....well it works out rather well I feel. There's some smart points of reference in there, note the young Little handling his gun amongst a sea of childhood toys, while there's a dolly out shot involving a church that nails that particular scene with maximum poignancy. But really, as is normally the way in this type of production, it lives or dies by its ending, and the question is answered as to if the actors involved have involved us enough to actually carry it off?
We are OK here, because we got Nesbitt and Neeson, point made, acted accordingly, yep, see this if you can. 8/10
Because, as highlighted in this film, the question of forgiveness is not about erasing or escaping from the past but rather embracing it and find where the things left behind from the past, doesn't matter whether they were sweet or sour, fits to help bring out the most in life. The acting performances by both lead roles are commendable.
All this in one film is difficult enough, and this is all made in 80 minutes. Liam Neeson is of course the one getting the prizes, but actually this is Oscar-material by James Nesbitt. So strong, it actually seems impossible that he can have a life beside it all. He's done well, but is still nagged by what he saw as eleven.
The story is about an 11 year old Joe (Nesbitt) watching his brother being assassinated by a 17 year old Protestant youngster (Neeson) wanting to be a terrorist during the civil war in Norther Ireland. 35 years later it's time to settle what has ruined the lives of both of them. They are not living, but merely existing, and not a day goes without being haunted by this killing.
The film is intense, and several times you wonder where it'll end. For some the end might not be what they ask for, but I think it makes the story strong. However - it's not the end that makes this movie, it's the ideas and the acting. Also some of the filming is superb, and is recognizable also for director Oliver Hirschbiegel and his work on Der Untergang (Downfall) describing the last days of Hitler. Very impressive from the whole team!
The first part of the film shows the killing of 19 year old Jim Griffin by a 17 year old Alistair Little in 1975.
The second part of the film depicts a reconciliation meeting for television between Alistair Little and Jim's brother Joe, three decades later.
Although the incident of the killing is apparently based on true events the rest of the story is fictional.
It is the one of many stories we will encounter in the years to come, now the Troubles are over and people look back on the past with different perspectives.
The story is essentially about two damaged men who are still damaged over 30 years later. One wanting forgiveness, the other unwilling to forgive.
James Nesbitt has the more showy role as Joe, with nervous tics, talkative with pent up frustration as he is about to meet the killer of his brother. He has revenge on his mind.
Neeson who ironically found a new wind with cinema audiences in the Taken films, is more calm, measured and assured as Alistair. He bitterly regrets the mistakes he made. All he craved when he was a youth, was acceptance from the elders of his community.
The final scene when he does get closure is priceless.
This is a small scale film which has something big to say. With Neeson, it attracts an audience and he delivers.
It is not a crash, bang, wallop type of film though. It is thoughtful and a slow burn one. Both Nesbitt and Neeson carry the story.
Wusstest du schon
- WissenswertesLiam Neeson was raised a Catholic and portrays a Protestant. James Nesbitt was raised a Protestant and portrays a Catholic.
- PatzerLittle's photograph of Griffin's family changes between shots. In some scenes it has a border and in others it doesn't.
- Zitate
Alistair Little: [talking to TV camera] For me to talk about the man I have become, you need to know about the man I was. I was 14 when I joined the Tartan gangs and I was 15 when I joined the UVF. At that time, don't forget, there were riots on the streets every week; petrol bombs everyday, and that was just in our town. When you got home and switched on the TV, you could see what was happening in every other town as well, and it was like we were under siege. Fathers and brothers and friends were being killed in the streets, and the feeling was, we all have to do somethin'. We're all in this together and we all have to do somethin'.
Alistair Little: The thing you have to remember, what you have to understand, is the mindset. Once you have signed up to terror, and joined the organization - the group - your mind closes right down. It becomes only *our* story that matters, not their story - the Catholics. It's only *my* people that are being killed, and here suffering and that need looking after. Catholics being killed? Doesn't enter your head. And so when I went up to Sammy, our local commander, and told him I wanted to kill a Catholic man, it wasn't a wrong thing for me to do. In my head, it was the proper, the just, the fair, the good thing to do. And so, it was easy.
Alistair Little: When I got to the house, there was a boy in the street. I didn't expect him to be there, but, there he was. I only looked at him for a moment because I had a job to do, but if I had known that he was Jim's brother, I would have shot him as well. It was in the mindset. It was tit-for-tat, and perhaps one more - why not? That's what it was like. I was only 17. I'd seen my people fighting ever since I was a wee boy. You'd take sides with your friends as a boy, but we weren't just throwing stones over the fence, we were shooting guns. What I want to tell people - what society must do - is to stop people getting to the point where they join the group. Because when you get to that point it's too late. No-one's gonna stop you. No-one's gonna change your mind. And once you're in, you will do anything. You will kill anyone on the other side, because it's right to do it. Once your man has joined the group, society has lost him. And what he needs to hear are voices on his own side, stopping him before he goes in. There were no voices on my side, not on my side of the town, not in my state. No-one was telling me anything other than that killing is right. It was only in prison when I heard that other voice. And the Muslims now, you know the kids now are like I was then. They need to hear those voices now, stopping them from thinking that killing is good. They need *their own* people to say "no". That's where they need to hear it, and that's where I would put my money - on making those voices heard in every mosque in the country.
Alistair Little: When I got home, my mother and father were watching the TV, and it came on the news that the man I had shot was dead. I was so excited, I couldn't wait for when I would get my congratulations. Sammy was going to come knocking at my door, he was going to lead me out into the street and proudly walk me into the bar, and everybody was gonna stand up and applaud. Me? I would've shot anyone for that. And that is why I talk to anybody who would listen now, to tell them to stop boys like me thinking that to shoot an innocent, and a decent man in the head, is a good thing.
- VerbindungenFeatured in WatchMojo: Top 10 Liam Neeson Performances (2012)
- SoundtracksA Glass of Champagne
Written by Georg Kajanus
Performed by Sailor
Courtesy of Sony BMG Records
Under license by Sashay Music & Warner Chappell Music Publishing
Top-Auswahl
Details
- Erscheinungsdatum
- Herkunftsländer
- Sprache
- Auch bekannt als
- Chính Trường
- Drehorte
- Produktionsfirmen
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Box Office
- Bruttoertrag in den USA und Kanada
- 15.676 $
- Eröffnungswochenende in den USA und in Kanada
- 5.364 $
- 23. Aug. 2009
- Weltweiter Bruttoertrag
- 364.355 $
- Laufzeit1 Stunde 29 Minuten
- Farbe
- Sound-Mix
- Seitenverhältnis
- 1.85 : 1
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