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15 Minutes
(2001) Starring: Robert
DeNiro, Edward Burns, Kelsey Grammer
Director: John Herzfeld
Rating: R Studio:
New Line Cinema Review
Posted:
3.13.01
Spoilers:
Minor
Reviewed by Dennis Landmann
"An Interesting Look At How The Media Responds To 15 Minutes
of Fame"
The
media can either be your best ally or your worst enemy. In the
case of 15 Minutes, the media appears to be both.
Tracking the celebrity of police detective Eddie Flemming (DeNiro), the media is a powerful friend. Dealing with mad
filmmakers shooting their crimes, the media can be the most
destructive and unloyal enemy. Director John Herzfeld addresses
these issues that form the popularity and power the media has
today.
15 Minutes fades in to the New York airport, where
from Russia and the Czech republic, Emil (Karel Rodin) and Oleg
(Oleg Taktarov) have come in search of money owed to them. Their
vacation soon turns deadly, when Oleg realizes his dreams of
becoming a filmmaker. With a stolen camera, Oleg and Emil start
filming their crimes/murders around New York. Thier havoc
attracts the attention of arson investigator Jordy Warsaw
(Burns) and Flemming. In order to catch the amateur filmmakers
who videotape people without a
license, both must join forces to catch them before the media
gets their hands on the [videotaped] criminal evidence.
This
movie makes a lot of references to how the media responds to
certain issues in real life. As portrayed here, the media and
its respective networks are hungry for violence and unbelievable
stories. One such program, anchored by Robert Hawkins (Grammer),
is after those types of news. "Hard to believe?
Watch!" is their slogan. When Emil and Oleg option to sell
their taped crimes, Hawkins sees an opportunity to get higher
ratings. What creates higher ratings? Violence all alone.
15 Minutes utilizes this "anonymous trademark" of the
media and exploits it to
blow things up and detail murders in extreme close-ups so the
audience can lovingly take in all the lurid details of it. There
is something ironic about it, if you ask me. Then again, it's
within the boundaries of the points it attempts to make.
15 Minutes is an attempt at social commentary. There are some
interesting points to be made about this topic of dangerous
notoriety, however in the case in this movie, most of the points
have already been made in the media many times. Shot in and set
for release in 1999, 15 Minutes kind of feels out of
time. Nevertheless, it can't hurt to be reminded of the
exploitative world of instant celebrity that is Andy Warhol's
line, "In the future, everyone will be world famous for
fifteen minutes."
15 Minutes attempts to make a bigger point about the media, but
it's confused about where this vicious idea should go. The
killers own quite a lot of screen time and it's a justified
reason because the audience is allowed to get to know their
"ways and means." They are also not the usual types of
bad guys you see in most movies. Herzfeld recognized this and
has the characters, through the performance of the actors,
provide unexpected moments of humanity and wickedness. 15 Minutes explores New York in many ways, most evident in a
clever and entertaining chase scene in the middle of the movie.
The
message of 15 Minutes didn't satisfy me as a whole, which
is why I didn't really enjoy it as much. This is not the usual
buddy-cop actioner with cheap thrills, when in fact it's the
opposite. But just that doesn't make a movie good or great. It's
not bad at all, but I just didn't like it as much.
Rating: 6
out of 10
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