15 Minutes
15 Minutes | ||
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Director: | John Herzfeld | Actors: | Robert De Niro (as Detective Eddie Fleming), Edward Burns (I) (as Jordy Warsaw), Kelsey Grammer (as Robert Hawkins), Avery Brooks (as Detective Leon Jackson), Melina Kanakaredes (as Nicolette Karas), Karel Roden (I) (as Emil Slovak), Oleg Taktarov (as Oleg Razgul), Vera Farmiga (as Daphne Handlova), John DiResta (as Bobby Korfin), James Handy (as Deputy Chief Fire Marshal Declan Duffy), Darius McCrary (as Detective Tommy Cullen), Bruce Cutler (as Bruce Cutler), Kim Cattrall (as Cassandra), David Alan Grier (as Mugger in Central Park), Vladimir Mashkov (as Milos Karlova) | Country: | USA | Category: | Crime | Year: | 2001 |
| Description: | A homicide detective and a fire marshall must stop a pair of murderers who commit videotaped crimes to become media darlings. | Comments: | SPOILERS - The title "15 Minutes" is a reference to the old saying that everyone gets their 15 minutes of fame. To relate how difficult it was for me to stick with this movie all the way, I have to draw on my viewing of "The Shawshank Redemption." Our hero, Andy Defrene, had to crawl through a filthy, stinking sewer pipe to eventually gain his reward, freedom. Watching "15 Minutes", half-way through I felt that I was in that same sewer pipe, and if I stuck with it I would eventually get my reward. I never did get out of that sewer pipe! Robert DeNiro as the homicide detective, and Edward Burns as the Fire Dept arson detective, are both good in their roles. Two Eastern European thugs come to NYC to collect their money from a comrade, but he had already spent it all. Enraged, the worse of the thugs kills him, then kills the wife, they burn the apartment to make it look like an accident. This results in DeNiro's and Burns' characters meeting, and becoming partners of sorts. The less evil thug steals a video camera, and decides he will "make a movie" of their dirty deeds, getting the murders, and subsequent events, on tape. They sell it to the newsman (Kelsey Grammer) for a $Million, and state "if we get caught, we'll be declared insane, etc" because in America, land of the free, home of the brave, anyone can get rich. Interestingly DeNiro gets killed off rather early, but Burns sees to it that the bad guys get their due at Battery Park, with the Statue of Liberty in the background shot. There are several problems with this movie, and my most generous rating is "5" of 10 for some good moments, most of them funny, and the very end where the baddest of the bad guys gets about 97 rounds pumped into him from Burns' little handgun. That's part of the problem, is this supposed to be somewhat serious, or just a badly done dark comedy? Too many of the situations were absurd, for a serious film. And there was way too much gore and violence for this to be a credible dark comedy. I would not have watched it but our neighbor loaned us their DVD. I must admit, it has a kick-ass surround sound track. But the film itself leaves no particular lasting impression. |
Languages: | English | Subtitles: | Length: | 120 | Video format: | Audio format: | Resolution: | Files sizes: | 1079 |