The devastating violence that once engulfed Northern Ireland has, for more than a decade now, been consigned to 20th century history. Of course, that’s a gross piece of misinformation as far as the people living in today’s Northern Ireland are concerned. Both their memories of that conflict and their fears of its return remain strong. But, since around the time that the Good Friday Agreement brought that country an official peace, the rest of the world’s political and media powers have certainly seemed content to close the book on it – shifting our hungry eyes on to the next torn region, in our enduring and subconscious lust for only the most extreme of dramas.

Despite this, Five Minutes Of Heaven does manage to return our attention to this not-so-resolved state of affairs and charters the difficult seas that have lingered since the storm. Via the real lives of two men who share one very tragic and true story, the film is an informed study of the still open wounds of an entire nation seemingly stalled and without purpose in the wake of relinquishing the thing they knew how to do best: make war.

The true story begins in Belfast in 1975. A teenage Alistair Little (Liam Neeson) is the ambitious leader of a British loyalist Ulster Volunteer Force cell, planning to kill a neighbourhood Catholic man as a warning to others. Though Alistair successfully hunts down and shoots dead his target, he unwittingly does so in front of the dead man’s 11-year-old brother, Joe Griffin (James Nesbitt). It’s a devastating act that ultimately sentences Alistair to 12 years in prison. As for Joe, he suffers an equal sentence of debilitating mental anguish from having stood idly by as his older brother was gunned down.

It’s at this point where the true story ends and a brilliant piece of fiction writing takes over for the rest of the way. Thirty years later, both men continue to live in dread of encountering the other and having to face their inner demons. So, cue the infuriating, insensitive force of a British television program that has decided to arrange and broadcast a live-to-air meeting of Alistair and Joe for the first time since that fateful night. The producers hope for a ratings-winning moment of reconciliation. But the two men themselves are each privately preparing for a very different encounter.

The screenplay at work here is one of rare precision and depth - a sense that’s reinforced by the knowledge that writer, Guy Hibbert, spent around four years painstakingly interviewing (and counseling) the real Little and Griffin to uncover their deep regret and still simmering rage respectively.

From out of Hibbert’s delicate hands and into the hands of helmer Oliver Hirschbiegel (Das Experiment, Downfall), the story’s bleak, truthful tone materialises into a grim and minimalist visualising of life in Belfast. Whilst the action regularly edges towards bursting open into an all-out thriller, Hirschbiegel continually (and swiftly) neutralises those moments back down to a more familiar, everyday intensity – admirably forsaking entertainment for increased realism, despite the obvious negative reactions that could (and, perhaps, should) incur.

Both Neeson and Nesbitt command their roles. It’s most likely that, simply as Northern Irishmen, their personal insights and understandings of the climate and themes being dealt with here are what has so successfully translated into two of the most convincing and memorable performances across either player’s career.  

The sound design, too, generates such powerful effects throughout that it’s impossible to end this without singling it out for high praise also. Intimidating moments of silence, laboured breathing, ticking clocks and seething inner monologues continually (and, arguably, more effectively than any other element) point straight to the story’s true heart: each man’s need for self-reconciliation, far removed from the reconciliation desired between them.

Five Minutes of Heaven opens in cinemas this Thursday, March 18.
You can view the Five Minutes of Heaven movie trailer here on TheVine.