Five Minutes of Heaven is on BBC 2 this Sunday at 9pm.

Thought this deserved a thread as it's quite an oddity to find a film on television while it's still playing in many cinemas. The film is on this coming Sunday on BBC2 at 9 pm.

Liam Neeson and James Nesbitt star in a one-off drama based in Northern Ireland inspired by the true lives of a gunman and the brother of his victim.

Neeson plays Alistair Little, who as a 17 year-old member of the Ulster Volunteer Force, shot and killed 19 year-old catholic Jim Griffin in 1975.

The attack was witnessed by Griffin's 11 year-old brother, Joe.

The drama moves the story on to the present day and imagines what would happen if Alistair Little and Joe Griffin were now to meet.

James Nesbitt plays the grown-up Joe Griffin, who is reluctant but agrees to meet Little who has served 13 years for his crime and is now an ambassador against violence.

In reality the two men have never me

Five Minutes of Heaven is on BBC 2 on Sunday, 5 April 2009 at 9pm.

r3nu4l

Darko wrote: »

Thought this deserved a thread as it's quite an oddity to find a film on television while it's still playing in many cinemas. The film is on this coming Sunday on BBC2 at 9 pm.

I've seen this advertised and plan on watching it. Should be great!

JP Liz

Was this at the Dublin Film Festival?

Im surprised it is on tv so soon.

I'm looking forward to seeing this.

Basq

Thought this looked excellent alright.. Sky+'ing it now!

tommyboy2222

Strange its on tv so soon alright.

Read good reviews about it. BBC probably involved in making it.

kraggy

Just finished watching this.

Mixed feelings. Parts of it were good but parts of it annoyed the hell out of me.

Nesbitt's acting was hot and cold. Neeson was steady enough.

Can't quite put my finger on it. Just feel a little disappointed...

Basq

Spot on with my opinions kraggy.

Neeson was in it too briefly to form an opinion of his performance.. but the man has a charisma and presence on screen that few words even appear powerful. Nesbitt was very good in some scenes and irritating in others (due to over-acting mainly).

Felt the first 20 minutes and last 20 minutes were the most worthwhile.. with the

lead-up to the one-on-one interview being incredibly pointless and drawn-out to the point of being mere filler

.

Unfortunately it felt like a TV movie at best.

lostexpectation

well i think the film was as much about reconciliation fetishism,there plenty of dodgey tv shows interviewing various peope, that the tv interview was an essential part of this film,

so in the end the guy was too scared to really try to kill the other guy, the end?

mike65

basquille its not often I think you've missed the point completely in the filum game, but you did here!

I'll spoiler this just to be consistant with basquille

The scene you spolier was intended to be pointless - its was an examination not so much of the two men but of the medias manipulation. Remember the proposed meeting came not at the behest of either man but a tv production company.

The scenes that bored you were an examination of the medias idiotic obsession with presentation, rather than the mens needs or wants which they are not intereted in anyway except in terms of "good telly".

quad_red

I think you're spot on there Mike.

The very real rage, terror and emotion that Nesbitts character felt was made even more stark in comparison to his glib treatment at the hands of the tv show producers.

They treat what happened as a footnote, far in the past and something to be gotten over.

But his trauma (their voices drowned out) is real, is present and is overwhelming.

I found those scenes the most moving and Nesbitt was brilliant in them.

I think it lost it's way slightly in the end. But the point made by Neesons character

when one of the tv crew ask him if he will say sorry stuck with me. The last thing people want it sorry. What does sorry mean?

They just want to move on.

A laudable and timely film methinks.

Basq

What I mean by pointless and drawn out is that the film spent far too long meandering through those scenes.

I understand the

inner turmoil of Jimmy's character and his need for his "five minutes of heaven" and those "One-on-One" scenes put the point of how utterly pointless a glorified meeting between the two would be almost immediately with the producer talking to Jimmy about what would happen and the process of how the interview will unfold.

We then got another 20 minutes of Nesbitt tutting and looking uncomfortable on screen - it didn't add anything.

Like I said, I understood the point early on in those scenes but I think it pandered along for too long after the fact.

mike65

Fair enough

lostexpectation

well then the film would be 20 minutes shorter

r3nu4l

I agree that overall it was mediocre. The scenes that basquille talks about were definitely over-long. We (and by that I mean me ) got the point the first few times it was hammered home but it just kept being repeated and in the end got boring (for me anyway).

Not a bad piece of film but it could have been much more imo.

fryup

wasn't earth shattering by any means....but at least it was balanced...not taking sides...which is a refreshing change, as most movies about the north are usually pro-nationalist.