MPAA Rated – R
It’s 2:00 Long
A Review by:
– The Dude on the Right
| 15 Minutes Movie Stats & Links |
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| Starring: | Robert De Niro, Edward Burns, Kelsey Grammer, Melina Kanakaredes |
| MPAA Rated: | R |
| Released By: | New Line Cinema |
| Kiddie Movie: | Not at all. |
| Date Movie: | She might get scared and snuggle. |
| Gratuitous Sex: | More nudity than sex. |
| Gratuitous Violence: | Lots of it. |
| Action: | Some good chase scenes. |
| Laughs: | De Niro always gives some chuckles. |
| Memorable Scene: | I won’t spoil it. |
| Memorable Quote: | None stand out. |
| Directed By: | John Herzfeld |
| Produced By: | John Herzfeld, David Blocker |
“15 Minutes” was one of those movies that as stupid, hopefully for a while, was its base story line, it still ends up enjoyable, I guess mostly because the characters are creepy and likeable, and there is one twist that I’m still surprised the filmmakers used. Here’s the story that hopefully never ends up on TV.
Robert De Niro plays Eddie Flemming. He’s a cop in New York who does his job well, even if he does let news-dude Robert Hawkins (Kelsey Grammer) film a lot of what he does. With this Eddie has become sort of a celebrity in the town. Enter Emil (Karel Roden) and Oleg (Oleg Taktarov), two new visitors to the United States from Western Europe. Oleg dreams of being a film director and to help him achieve his dream he begins by stealing a way-cool video camera and then directing his first scene – Emil killing his buddy. Emil isn’t too hip to Oleg’s filming until he finds that documenting their assorted murders might land him a financial windfall when he sells the footage to Hawkins and plans to option the screen rights. In the meantime Jordy (Edward Burns), the fire marshal, hooks up with Eddie when both their jobs intersect investigating some of Emil’s handiwork. Eddie tries to teach Jordy a thing or two about being a celebrity and Jordy tries to teach Eddie a thing or two about being a little less intimidating when questioning scared suspects, in this case Daphne (Vera Farmiga) who witnessed Emil’s slicing work on his buddy.
So with our heroes on the trail of the killers, the movie turns to Robert Hawkins lack of scruples, or at least lack of caring about anything he shows on TV, when he airs one of the murders Emil committed. Upsetting everyone, especially young Jordy, it does make you wonder if there isn’t anything that might not end up on TV nowadays, but you sincerely hope, although you would probably still watch, that it doesn’t come to the likes of Grammer’s Hawkins showing the top story.
The story for “15 Minutes” is one that doesn’t seem too realistic, it has a few holes, but it is daring enough to pull off a couple of surprises which I won’t tell you here lest I spoil a major plot point, and I think that might be why I ended up coming out of “15 Minutes” saying to myself as well as hearing from others that the movie wasn’t that bad. De Niro is his usual great self and Burns plays Eddie’s puppy dog sidekick faithfully. You tend to hate Emil and feel kinda sad for Oleg, yet the one plot line that really didn’t fit was Eddie’s relationship with news reporter Nicki (Melina Kanakaredes) which just seemed a little out of place for Eddie’s personality. Oh well, I guess you can’t have it all.
So, for “15 Minutes” you get an entertaining movie containing well-played bad guys, well-played good guys, some quality kills, a little gratuitous nudity, and a feeling that it won’t be too long before some broadcaster really does show someone’s murder on TV. I’ll give “15 Minutes” 3 ½ stars out of 5.
That’s it for this one! I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!