'15 Minutes' fails to earn
its fame
 By
Mark Richmond
Senior Writer
Everyone gets their fifteen minutes of fame, but
in this movie, two criminals are willing to kill for theirs. "15 Minutes"
is a moderately entertaining film, but the plot falls short during frequent
attempts to drive an obvious moral point.
Emil and Oleg (Karel Roden and Oleg Taktarov) are
two shady Eastern European men visiting the U.S. with the intention
of collecting a million dollar debt. When the debtor fails to cough
up the dough, Emil hacks him with a kitchen knife while Oleg tapes the
murder with a stolen video camera.
Desperate to reclaim their lost fortune, the duo
concocts a get-rich-quick scheme to sell their grizzly footage to the
media. They plan to videotape the murder of beloved New York Police
Department cop Eddie Flemming (Robert De Niro), sell the tape to a tabloid
for millions of dollars, and escape conviction by claiming insanity
and childhood abuse. Enthralled with the legal system's over-forgiving
nature, Emil says "I love America; no one is responsible for what
they do."
De Niro is no stranger to police roles and it shows;
his performance in the film is flawless. Roden and Taktarov are a perfect
personification of the Euro-trash criminal thugs they're intended to
portray.
Flemming teams up with arson investigator Jordy
(Edward Burns) to track down the two killers before they can add more
footage to their gruesome movie. Both are portrayed as modest, media-weary
heroes who know the dangers of too much attention from news reporters.
The film personifies the media's insatiable appetite
for blood and violence in the form of local tabloid producer Robert
Hawkins, (Kelsey Grammer) who's willing to make the criminals' twisted
scheme come true — for a price. His attitude towards violent media
is bluntly expressed when he says, "If it bleeds, it leads."
Unfortunately, too many scenes focus on reinforcing
the moral point of the film, and not enough time is devoted to advancing
the story itself. The point that the media sometimes gives too much
attention to criminals is bluntly made over and over again.
Think Robert De Niro meets "Natural Born Killers"
without the artsy camerawork. The photography during the murder scenes
is intentionally jerky and filmed in poor lighting to convey realism,
but the result is quite confusing and annoying.
The movie is not bad, but it is unsatisfying in
that it tries to be a good suspense film and morally enlightening at
the same time. It fails on both counts. Robert De Niro fans may want
to give it a look, but for everyone else, "15 Minutes" will be two hours
of lukewarm entertainment.
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