There are not many options out there right now that can compete with the momentum of "Inception." Steve Carrell's new film "Dinner for Schmucks" hasn't been released in the Southern Hemisphere yet, and "Hot Tub Time Machine" is already old news.</p><p>So, instead, I went to see another drama, "5 Minutes of Heaven," starring Liam Neeson. The film explores the violent legacy of the Protestant-Catholic conflict in Ireland. It supposes what would happen if the victim of a violent crime was to meet the perpetrator years later. </p><p>The story is based on real men. Neeson is Alistair Little, who at 17 joins the Protestant movement in Northern Ireland and in order to join the UVF must kill a Catholic man. He and his friends drive into a Catholic neighborhood and he shoots four bullets into another Catholic teenager in front of his younger brother, Joe Griffin.</p><p>The scene is intense, Alistair stares into the camera without an ounce of compassion, portraying the sense of loss in a culture that tried to save its people with violence. </p><p>Twenty years later, we meet the adult Joe Griffin, whose entire life has been shaped by this traumatic event. His father soon died of a heart attack, his brother of suicide and his mother of grief. He is on his way to meet Alistair, who, after being imprisoned for 16 years, has begun touring the world to talk about peaceful resolutions to violent movements.</p><p>Griffin resents him not only for his crime, but the recent world prestige he has received for it. </p><p>The film is principally a character study. A deep reflection of two men, neither of whom can allow themselves to forgive the past and embrace a new future, and a meditation of violence in cultural conflicts.</p><p>Yet the film doesn't go further than scratching the surface of either.</p><p>Although Neeson and James Nesbitt have two unbelievable performances -- especially Nesbitt, who is manic, depressed, angry and philosophical, all at once -- neither has a fully written character. </p><p>Griffin and Little are developed through two separate monologues in a therapist's office and a victims group meeting, which is flat and clich&#233;d, and takes away from the emotional weight that the film began with. </p><p>A better example of the Irish conflict that comes to mind is the Daniel Day-Lewis film "In the Name of the Father"; a better example of humans suffering from guilt would be Kate Winslet's "The Reader"; or the best option would be Christopher Nolan's "Inception" or Scor- sese's "Shutter Island," which deal with similar themes of guilt and trauma.