15 Minutes (2024)

15 Minutes

Do you think this could ever happen? Two creeps make a video of themselves committing a murder and try to sell it to a reality news show for one million dollars. They also plan on using the defense that they are not sane and that their past was very brutal.

I believe it can happen. I have heard of a documentary from Sundance this year where some frat boy filmed his buddy in an act of sex, which the lady called rape. The movie contains the tape, which has been released to the press by law enforcement officials and you can decide how you feel about this.

Who would do such a thing like this? (By,”15 Minutes”, I mean both the fictional plot about murder as well as the actual footage of rape.) People who appear on shows like “The Jerry Springer Show,’’ I suppose, those are also signs for me that our society is sliding towards barbarity. When you say these people don’t have any shame, remember that they may be unfamiliar with what “shame” means or even what it is. For fifteen minutes fame they will humiliate themselves so willingly in return as Andy Warhol famously promised them.

’15 Minutes’ is a scathing satire on violence, media, and depravity. It isn’t polished like ‘Natural Born Killers’ or smart like ‘Wag the Dog,’ but it’s real film making instead of another link in the sausage factory; with its rough edges intact. There have been some reviews suggesting that certain sections are far-fetched. For example, would murderers really take their videos to TV hoping to get arrested while watching them at Planet Hollywood? Now here’s where it gets interesting I think there are those who would.

Robert De Niro stars in this film as Manhattan cop turned celebrity detective Eddie Burns playing opposite Edward Burns (no relation) as arson investigator Jordy Warsaw and Kelsey Grammer taking turns as host Jerry Springer/Geraldo Rivera. On the other side of the street are Oleg Taktarov and Karel Roden as Oleg and Emil, who are a Czech and Russian respectively, fly into JFK airport where they rob an electronics shop within hours of arriving.

There is a dream in Emil for wealth and fame through violence while Oleg captures his exploits on videotape; at first just to amuse himself but later with a purpose. No one is responsible for anything in America, says Emil because “no one is responsible for what they do!” Frank Capra, the poet of the little guy sticking it to the man, is his idol.

Written and directed by John Herzfeld, this movie seems like it was made by someone under influence of characterizations and locales. Such was also his previous full length picture which came out in 1997 called “2 Days in the Valley”. Although sometimes becoming tired from rushing from one story line to another it can be argued that this film may overreach itself but I prefer such enthusiasm and ambition rather than slow-paced exercises full of action cliches. Herzfeld has something he wants to say.

His point of departure is the assumption that Emil and Oleg are perfectly amoral idiots, their homelands having been formed by oversaturation of American TV shows and movies. Because these countries are filled with U.S. entertainment, whose majority exports are action films without much dialogue, this claim is not such a far cry. Does it mean they view America as hopelessly brutal and unrealistic? Yes, but still it is our image for export to study abroad.

They invade Manhattan shooting, slashing, burning, and pillaging their way through old friends, call girls and bystanders. Burns finds indications in his role as fire inspector that the fire was set up to hide a murder whilst De Niro does some jockeying for position in the media because he wants to be credited with an investigation. His attempts at publicity are aided by his friendship with Grammer, a reality TV star and romantic involvement with a television reporter (Melina Kanakaredes).

Really the movie centers on Emil and Oleg. In my opinion they were like Dick Smith and Perry Hickock from “In Cold Blood,” except that the vicious amorality of that 1968 film no longer seems so utterly alien to its surrounding society; this kind of people are what programs like Grammer’s “Top Story” rely upon.

The movie has its flaws though. I have this personal theory that every time you see a character tied to a chair it is simply because the screenwriter didn’t know where else to go with the plot. Some of them get away unrealistically. The ending is automatic pilot stuff. However there’s one absolutely terrific scene where Burns tries to save a woman from her burning apartment; it’s his best work since Backdraft along those lines.” And touching moments involving De Niro which prevent him from being purely publicity hungry for any scientific anthropologist or sociologist doing research as well as anyone who appreciates evil when it is not premeditated or self-conscious.

Some good movies, however, seem to be mere technical exercises. Others are flawed but with a seed of inspiration. He has not achieved greatness yet in his films, but Herzfeld might. He cares, he tries; he is not satisfied. You sit through the movie and question specifics and overdone excesses. Later you respect it for how passionately it does that, and what it aims at.

Watch 15 Minutes For Free On Gomovies.