| 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
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