Five Minutes of Heaven (2009)

I was handed this video and told it looked like the kind of film that I would watch. It's a BBC production starring Liam Neeson and James Nesbitt. This is exactly the kind of thing I watch. All I knew about this film going in was the cover of the DVD case. Pictures, close-ups of Neeson and Nesbitt not looking too happy, someone in a ski mask, a sepia-toned picture of a 70s car, a hand holding a gun. There was also the line in block capital letters, "TO FACE THE FUTURE, THEY MUST FACE THE PAST". My way of thinking is that whether or not the movie is any good, Neeson and Nesbitt are two men that are always worth watching.
I was not wrong.
There is far less action than the cover implies, so anyone who wants to see an American style action film with Neeson should forget about this and go watch Taken. This is instead a well-told story about two men who are tied together by an event that happened in 1975 that forever changed both of their lives in horrible ways. The film is the story of how they each independently have tried to deal with what happened them and how they let it shape the men they have become. The main focus of the film is an arranged meeting of the men so that they can come to some sort of resolution.
This movie really is all Neeson and Nesbitt. I don't mean that the rest of the actors suck, because they don't, they all seem quite believable in fact. But all the other parts, maybe with the exception of a minor character played wonderfully by Anamaria Marinco, are bit parts. Other than Marinco, everyone else has just a few lines at most. But, when you have two of the finest living actors together in the same film, why would you clutter it up with other people? The way the story unfolds, it makes sense that these two are the focus. Okay, so maybe I'm being a little hyperbolic by adding Nesbitt into the rarified air of "greatest living actors", but I don't think I am with Neeson, and certainly Nesbitt is one of my favorite actors so please excuse my bias.
I can not tell you how great it is to watch a film and not know how it's going to end until it does. Okay, it's this great. You can't see me right now, but I actually stopped typing and held my hands as far apart as they would go. Really. And if you can see me now, well creepy, 'cause it's night time and I'm sitting in my bedroom typing this, but you would know that I'm telling the truth about holding my hands up at arm's length.

Five Minutes of Heaven on IMDb

Oh, and the four stars and exclamation point rating on the front cover must be a four star and not a five star system, right? Or a typo. If it were me, I would just give this film five out of five stars, no punctuation.