Movie Review - 15 Minutes
User Rating:
(No Ratings Yet)
Loading ...
2001 / 120 Minutes / R
Reviewed by Jason Jones
A few years ago John Herzfeld made his directorial debut with the film “2 Days In The Valley”. It was an interesting experiment in the world of post-”Pulp Fiction” filmmaking. There was a lot of camp, but it managed to entertain and hold my interest for the most part. There were flashes of brilliance and a much renowned scene of intimacy involving Charlize Theron. Now, with his second feature film, Herzfeld has evolved into a director willing to take risks and tackle the subjects of his film without mercy. It is the merciless nature of his direction coupled with these risks that make “15 Minutes” a bold and brash movie the likes of which are not often seen anymore.
“15 Minutes” is a study of the dangers of mass media and the loopholes that exist in the American judicial system. To tell it’s tale the film centers on two Eastern European immigrants, Emil and Oleg, who have come to collect on money owed to them. Along their way to the pickup Oleg manages to lift a video camera from an electronics store. Being a self-professed fan of Frank Capra he begins filming… Everything! When they arrive to make the pickup they find out that their former partner has spent their money. Not being amused, Emil stabs the bejesus out of the man and his wife while Oleg captures it all on camera. Just as they are about to leave they realize that somebody saw them killing these people. Unable to catch her they burn the place to cover up the murders.
Enter arson investigator Jordy Warsaw (Edward Burns). He arrives at the scene only to find that publicity hound homicide detective Eddie Flemming (Robert Deniro) is already bumbling around in the apartment looking for clues. Jordy is irritated by this, but still manages to do his job and discern that it is a crime scene, because the fire was set deliberately. He also determines that the people were dead before the fire started. Having a homicide on their hands, the reins of the case are turned over to Flemming. He begins checking on leads and eventually Burns, wanting to be involved, comes along for the ride.
Our Eastern European friends have realized that they can get away with their killings through the “double jeopardy” law. All they have to do is get off the hook by reason of insanity and then, while in the loony bin, have a shrink say that they are sane. Book deals and movie rights dance in their heads along with the millions of dollars that will inevitably follow. They figure it’s foolproof. One would have to be insane to film the murders they commit, right? So they kill again and now Flemming and Burns are hot on their trail. This continues until they finally decide to see their tapes to a greedy news anchor who figures the grisly murders, captured by the video tapes, will send his ratings through the roof. This all leads to an ending that would make Clint Eastwood proud.
Sure this is a Deniro film, but it is really carried by the performances of Karel Roden and Oleg Taktarov as the immigrants. They are at times campy and at others chilling, but they are always driven by their unrealistic wants and desires. They are what makes the film work so well, because it relies so heavily on these two characters to sell the message that underlies the film.
Don’t get me wrong though. Deniro is great in a fairly thin and lightly used role. He could have played it straight as the hot shot media darling homicide detective, but that wouldn’t be Deniro. In his usual way, Deniro sinks his teeth into the role and adds levels of complexity that flesh out his character, making events that occur later on that much more difficult to take. There is a great scene that has Deniro trying to work out how he is going to propose to his girlfriend. He is talking into a mirror and using a crib sheet, so that he can speak these most heartfelt of words in her native language. This scene is beautifully done and made me smile and laugh in ways that scenes like this are supposed to, but often fail to. The scene is important, because it shows that Flemming is a human being with a soft side and not just a hard-nosed homicide detective that we have seen so many times before.
The other performance worth noting is that of Edward Burns. He usually seems to fall into pretty boy roles, but here he is rugged and unhinged. He feeds off of Deniro and turns in a stellar performance. His character transforms from being a headstrong arson investigator to a “Dirty Harry”-esque character during the final moments. He becomes wrath, so to speak, due to his being deterred at every attempt he has made to apprehend these men. It is a transformation that is very important to the heart and soul of the film and Burns pulls it off to perfection.
“15 Minutes” tackles difficult issues with a visual style that can’t help but be admired. During practically every scene involving Oleg and Emil we see the world through Oleg’s camera. This adds an air of uneasiness during the various murders that take place throughout the film, as we are forced to watch them in the first person through the ever watchful eye of Oleg’s camera. Along with this technique, Herzfeld spices up the film with some nicely done action set pieces that never feel forced. One of these scenes involves an apartment that has been rigged with gasoline that is set to explode if an escape is attempted. Tension is understandably high during this scene, as well as all the others with the final scene being the most noteworthy of all due to it’s masterful composition and execution.
The only real problem I had with this movie was the incorporation of an amateurish love story between Burns’ character and the witness to the first murders. There is no place for this sort of foolishness in a movie like this and thankfully Herzfeld must have realized this while editing, because he just kind of leaves it after awhile and never returns to it. I thank him for this because I would rather not see how a lame and misplaced love story turns out than have to sit through it’s resolution at the end of the film, which is one of the most tired cliches of all.
This will undoubtedly be a difficult film for many people to watch. Many of it’s more violent scenes come off much more disturbing than anything seen in “Hannibal”, which was, for reasons unbeknownst to me, villified for it’s violent nature. Maybe it’s because the violence didn’t seem warranted in that film whereas here it fits with the story’s nature. It exists to help prove the point the film is trying to make. It is a point that the film might go overboard on to some extent, but overall it has good intentions and never really gets preachy.
Okay. You’ve got Deniro giving his usual rock solid performance. You’ve got Burns delivering the performance of his life. As a bonus you even get a cameo performance by Charlize Theron as a “Hollywood Madam” wannabe. These performances are all compiled into one of the gutsiest movies I have seen in some time. I can’t really say why it is that I describe it this way, but when you see it you’ll know exactly what I mean.
If that isn’t enough to get you to the theater then nothing will.
