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Like many ambitious, provocative films, \"15 Minutes\" is a bit of
a mess. Both audacious and unwieldy, exciting and excessive, this dark thriller
is too long, too violent and not always convincing. But at the same time,
there\'s no denying that it\'s onto something, that its savage indictment of
the nexus involving media, crime and a voracious public is a cinematic
statement difficult to ignore.
For despite its traditional cops-and-killers format, \"15 Minutes\"
(its title taken from Andy Warhol\'s prediction of how long everyone in the
future can expect to be famous) is a polemical, apocalyptic film.
Writer-director John Herzfeld is furious at the \"if it bleeds, it
leads\" nature of our TV news culture, at the intertwined lusts for fame
and gore that rule a society where publicity is more important than reality,
everyone plays the victim, and everything is for sale.
Though its anger is a force to be reckoned with, \"15 Minutes\" finds
some space to be funny, albeit in a bleak way, and even provides unexpected
moments of romance. Herzfeld, whose debut film was the equally impudent if less
impressive \"2 Days in the Valley,\" has utilized an appropriately
off-center sensibility for his story, taking the strands of crime melodrama and
twisting them to fit his particular purposes.
A key factor in keeping \"15 Minutes\" involving is its look. Working
with inventive French cinematographer Jean Yves Escoffier (\"Les Amants du
Pont-Neuf,\" \"The Cradle Will Rock,\" \"Nurse
Betty\") and editor Steven Cohen, Herzfeld is determined to keep things
kinetic and visually interesting. He even makes vivid use of footage shot on a
video camera by one of the actors while in character.
In general outline a policier about two of the good guys chasing a pair of
villains, \"15 Minutes\" utilizes marquee names Robert De Niro and
Edward Burns for its investigators, but generates more interest with the two
lesser-known actors who get to create all the havoc.
Emil Slovak (Karel Roden) and Oleg Razgul (Oleg Taktarov) are exceptionally
good as the Eastern European version of those criminal odd couples movies
delight in spawning. While Emil is shrewd and ruthless, Oleg is childlike,
dreamy and obsessed with being a filmmaker. \"I am here for movies,\"
he tells a baffled New York immigration official, adding by way of explanation,
\"I saw \'It\'s a Wonderful Life.\' \"
Actually, Emil and Oleg are here to get the money owed them from an earlier
criminal action. This, not surprisingly, proves to be difficult, and soon Emil
is creating mayhem, and Oleg, a fan of \"Silence of the Sheeps\" who
registers at hotels as famed director Frank Capra, is recording it. \"A
tragedy,\" he says with conviction after one particularly bleak event.
\"Every great film must have one.\"
This kind of activity brings Emil and Oleg to the attention of a pair of very
different law enforcement types. Eddie Flemming (De Niro), the city\'s most
famous cop, is a media-wise celebrity homicide detective with an attractive
girlfriend (Melina Kanakaredes). He\'s a cop who\'s always good copy. Eddie\'s
professionally close to Robert Hawkins (Kelsey Grammer), the host of \"Top
Story,\" a tabloid TV show that\'s built its high ratings on broadcasting
violence.
Jordy Warsaw (Burns) sees things differently. An idealistic arson investigator,
he is initially put off by Flemming\'s reputation and methods, but soon learns
that image and publicity play a greater part in the criminal justice system
than he allowed himself to imagine.
In whatever time he can spare from shedding blood, Emil gets fascinated with
the kinds of TV talk shows in which everyone, no matter how morally corrupt,
claims, \"I\'m a victim here too.\" Delighted by our whiny, crybaby
public culture (\"I love America, no one is responsible for what they
do\"), the increasingly media-savvy Emil comes up with a devious scheme to
exploit this tendency that causes the film to take on a considerably darker
cast.
In addition to Roden, Taktarov and Grammer, \"15 Minutes\" (ably cast
by Mindy Marin) is especially good at finding excellent, underappreciated
actors (like Vera Farmiga, splendid as a witness to a crime) and making good
use of familiar faces (that\'s Charlize Theron, a \"2 Days in the
Valley\" veteran, under a black wig as an escort service madam).
But finally it\'s not the acting, not the erratic plotting and certainly not
the notable violence that gives \"15 Minutes\" its impact, but its
unfiltered fury. Flaws and all, this is a passionate attack on a cynical,
hypocritical media that rarely admits to error, as well as on a society at risk
of collapsing from within from selfishness and self-righteousness. We\'d like
to say that what we\'re seeing could never, ever happen