15 Minutes (2001)

This is the sort of movie which you enjoy while watching but then when you think back on it later you start noticing some things that didn't make sense. Thinking about those small problems reveals plot holes and so on and so on. Pretty soon you see the whole fabric of the movie unraveling before you and you start wondering why you enjoyed it in the first place.

The answer is that the movie has some big aspirations and some quality acting that tends to camouflage some rather gaping flaws. Robert De Niro for instance is so good that you might not even realize just how poorly his character is written. This character is a detective who is insanely popular with the press yet rubs people the wrong way, drinks like a fish, has no discernable motives for anything he does and still manages to have a gorgeous girlfriend when he has the time. Yet I still found myself fascinated by him because De Niro makes him an interesting character, even if it's one that makes little sense.

Of course compared to Edward Burns character, a loose cannon fire marshall, De Niro's character is a work of brilliance. I have no idea what so ever why he does anything that he does. Burns does all he can but this is a character with nothing going on between the ears. He has no concept of dealing with the media, his boss, the cops, criminals, witnesses or his car. In fact the only time he seems competent is when investigating or escaping a fire.

Luckily we have a couple of loony tunes criminals to keep things interesting. Emil (Karel Roden) and Oleg (Oleg Taktarov), a Czech and a Russian, have come to America to collect their share of a robbery. Along the way Oleg swipes a video camera as the first step in his plan to make the great American movie. When they find their share of the loot has already been spent, Emil starts a killing spree with Oleg cheerfully filming it all. Watching daytime TV quickly gives Emil the idea that Americans think everyone is a victim and that he can get away free if he just pretends to be crazy. That begins their plan to sell the videotape of their rampage to a sleazy tabloid TV show.

Now this concept could make for a biting assault on a reactionary media that rarely ever seems to investigate anymore, contenting itself instead to focus on the bloodiest attacks and sleaziest scandals to a nauseating level of detail. It's certainly a facet of American society that is ripe for a savage beating but the movie leaves too many loose ends and poorly thought out ideas for the satire to have enough bite. For instance, Emil's plan wouldn't work. If he was captured and then declared insane, he wouldn't go free. Instead he would be sent to a hospital for the criminally insane, which is just a different type of prison. The plot works as if he would walk away clean and collect fat checks for movie rights. Again the thinking is flawed as there are laws to prevent criminals from profiting from their crimes in such ways.

So instead of a dark satire that could have really a needed smack upside the head to the media, we get a movie with some good De Niro, some nice action sequences, some nice chases and a couple of delightfully dumb but evil villains. In other words, some elements of a fun movie but not the elements of the movie I believe writer/director John Herzfeld wanted to make. I can appreciate what he was trying to do but the script really needed some more attention before this could become that movie. The end result is almost a poor man's version of Die Hard. Do you remember the sleazy reporter in that movie that was so intent on getting the juicy story that he never noticed the damage he was doing? That element is here too except the movie tries unsuccessfully to expand on that concept.

- John Shea

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