Five Minutes of Heaven

Can truth and reconciliation be achieved with the man who killed a loved one? That's the question put forth in "Five Minutes of Heaven," a character-driven, suspenseful film with two extremely powerful performances from Liam Neeson and James Nesbitt.
It begins in Northern Ireland, 1975. A teenage Alistair Little tires of Protestants being killed in the streets, and so joins the Ulster Volunteer Force determined to gain the respect of his brothers by killing a Catholic. James Griffin becomes his victim, while little brother Joe Griffin looks on in horror. It's a gut-wrenching scene as Joe watches his brother gunned down, locks eyes with Alistair, then sees James bleed to death. Not only is Joe traumatized by the event, but he carries a deep resentment that his mother blamed him for not doing anything to save James.
"Heaven," directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel ("Downfall") and written by Guy Hibbert, focuses on young boys needing to be men. Alistair marvels at the power of holding a gun, without understanding the weight that comes with it. And Joe is constantly blamed for inaction, but what could a young boy have done? He intends to remedy that later during a meeting, set-up by the media, that unites him with Alistair. Joe, played as an adult by Nesbitt, anxiously rehearses the things he wants to say. He not only wants to relay the hurt, the disappointment in the lack of Alistair's punishment, but also to hear Alistair remove the blame that his mother put on him. He even wants to know if Alistair remembers the little things about that night, like the pictures that hung on the wall, cause Joe remembers everything.
Alistair, played by Neeson, is changed. He served twelve years for robbery and came out a voice for urging other young men that killing is wrong. He is confronted with the reality of his atrocities on a daily basis and he hates himself for them. It doesn't matter to Joe though. He spits at the idea of having to shake Alistair's hand, to reconcile, and then watch Alistair go on his merry way, forgiven. What's done is done. Revenge is key and even Alistair knows it.
The TV crew setting up around where the men will make their connection adds another dimension to the film. Only looking to make good television, the constant annoyance of the cameras, where technical mishaps happen that demand re-takes, only serve to hammer home that this is the most sacred of meetings. Watching Joe walk down the stairs to meet Alistair for the first time, only to have to do it again cause of tech-failure, are angering.
Neeson and Nesbitt are fantastic. Neeson shows the mental anguish Alistair has gone through for his atrocities but also the acceptance that he must do this meeting with Joe. And Nesbitt is an anxious ball of anger. Watching him rant about what Alistair did to him and the lack of punishment for that act is heartbreaking and pummeling in its level of rage. A counterpoint later on when he hears from a runner on the TV set that Alistair is now a sad, broken down man leads to an interesting reaction from Joe as well.
"Heaven" never loses track of these men as they grapple with the difficulties of forgiveness (as does the audience) and never hits a false note in showing what they go through. You anxiously wait for them to finally meet and when they do the suspense is very real. This movie is, above all, a human story with an important meaning in our terrorism-around-the-globe-world.

Das Experiment (The Experminent)

Taxi driver and freelance journalist Tarek Fahd spots an advert in a newspaper for volunteers to take part in a psychological experiment over two weeks. He arrives along with a group of others, to be divided up into prisoners and guards before being placed into a simulated prison and provided with rules, Tarek being prisoner number 77. Initially everyone is enjoying themselves but soon the guards tire of the prisoners taking the p*ss and decide it is time to clamp down on their behaviour. As they realize that they have no limit on their powers, the actions of the guards become increasingly brutal and uncaring.

Based on the infamous experiments carried out at Stanford in the 1970's, this film had it all going for it in terms of being an effective thriller while also looking at the ways that human nature will gravitate towards the cruel once they are placed in positions of power. I decided to watch this film because it seemed interesting on this basis but also very topical considering the behaviour of the US soldiers in the Iraq prisons – mostly poor 'white trash' types who were corrupted when they suddenly found themselves in a position they had never been in before – control. Like them, the characters here gradually get more extreme – just like they did in the real experiment as well. With this topicality it is no surprise that I was easily taken in by the film and was never really bored by it. Being a thriller in its own right, the film has to settle into the eventual action conclusion but even this works pretty well and doesn't detract from what has gone before in terms of interest.

This is not to say it is perfect, because it could have been much better than it was. The constant cutting to Tarek's girlfriend now and in flashback only took away from the film and she could have still played her part at the end with much less time during the main body of the film. Also it became a little too far-fetched for the sake of drama – a recent television drama in the UK did it differently by actually recreating the same experiment as opposed to this film which needed to go harder and faster in order to reach the eventual running and fighting stage! But it still works and, to be honest, it is well worth seeking out for the 'human nature' aspect alone – it had a special resonance in Germany but it is hard not to be put in a thoughtful mood given recent events in Iraqi military prisons.

The cast are roundly good and all slip one way or the other in a convincing manner. Beibtreu is good once he gets past the stage where he is making trouble for the sake of it – this is necessary to speed the descent into cruelty but it was laid on a bit thick at the start. After this his performance is much more evenly balanced and he is a good lead. I struggled to pick up the names of all the others because they were mostly unknown to me but the head guard was very good while the rest of the cast did more than just deliver their pigeon-holed characters, where really they could have been nothing more than 'prisoner who goes crazy', 'timid guard', 'angry guard', 'silent prisoner' etc – they weren't, they were all pretty real people.

Overall this is not the best thing to come to if you are after a sort of documentary drama about the original experiment but it is still a very good film. It is exciting and dramatic while still having a bit of a brain on it – an asset made more interesting by what we have seen in Iraq over the past few months with guards becoming even worse than those we see in this film! Not a perfect film but a well made one that is interesting, involving and exciting and one that is well worth looking up.

The author writes under the pen-name of 'bob the moo' from Birmingham, UK