Five Minutes Of Heaven (2009/MPI Blu-ray + DVD)
Picture:
B/C+ Sound: B/B- Extras: C Film: B-
Oliver
Hirschbiegel (Downfall) may have
fumbled a bit on the mixed results of the sadly failed The Invasion (2007, reviewed elsewhere on this site), but he easily
finds himself back on track with Five
Minutes Of Heaven (2009), a very interesting take on the ongoing tale of
revenge and regret in the long running battle between the Irish Republican Army
and the British Government with the Irish Government caught in between. This includes religious divisions, but it is
an ongoing battle with many complexities that are still with us to this day.
Liam
Neeson plays the adult version of a 17-year-old assassin who killed for the
IRA, but the young man he killed had a younger brother and when that boy grows
up to be a man (James Nesbitt of the hit TV series Murphy’s Law, Woody Allen’s Match
Point), he wants revenge. By
adulthood, everyone knows who they are and who killed who, so when a TV show
tries to bring them together in peace, it reopens old wounds and sets off
unfinished business that should have been left alone.
Neeson is
fine as usual and the younger actors in the 1975 section are very convincing,
but Nesbitt proves he is more than just a comic actor with a performance as the
pained and even tormented witness (including flashbacks of his mother blaming
him for everything) that finally makes the difference between this and so many
other like films that do not work. Writer
Guy Hibbert based his screenplay on actual events that began in 1975 and does a
decent job capturing the people as character study and the time periods better
than most have of late.
The
result is a solid drama that succeeds more than not and though we have seen
some of this before, it is done so well that it is worth seeing for how much
works here. Anamaria Marinca, Niamh
Cusack and Juliet Crawford also star.
The 1080p
1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image was shot in Super 16mm film and not only
looks good, but proves once again that the many ill-advised writers and critics
(most of whom have never shot in film or projected film in their lives) do not
understand or have properly experienced the true fidelity of the format at its
best. Director of Photography Ruairi
O’Brien pushes the format to look good and it looks excellent here; better than
so many 35mm and especially poor/overrated HD shoots we have seen of late. The anamorphically enhanced DVD by comparison
is much weaker and does not do justice to the look of the film, but the Blu-ray
does and you get only some softness and detail limits.
Though
not listed as such on the Blu-ray case as such, the DTS-HD MA (Master Audio)
lossless 5.1 mix is also good, but this is a quiet, dialogue-based film, but it
is warm and warmer than the still-good Dolby Digital 5.1 mix on the DVD. Extras on both versions include a Behind The
Scenes featurette and trailer.
- Nicholas Sheffo
