Rating: 
Summary: It Actually Did Work
Review: I got passes to a screning of this film. Waiting in line some of the other folks and I discussed the violence of the video games in the lobby in that polite, well mannered, educated liberal manner. Then we settled in to watch the movie, and got to the climax scene where the good guy punches out the villian. You could literally watch the same group of well educated, properly opinioned liberals sit there, with there hands held out in front of them, perplexed. We knew we were supposed to clap, but then again Kelsey Grammers' character would have tugged at our emotions in the same way to elicit the same response. As such we were left as an impass as to what the correct behavior was, our gut saying clap and our brains saying don't. That is the sheer brillance of this movie--it doesn't say what to think, it just says think.
This movie is very bloody--to the exent that some people wil not want to watch it. If you have a weak stomach turn it off. However, that can be points in its favor. I was particualrly happy in the scene with the blond prostitute. She was the sort of character that only enters the scene to get killed by the bad guys, but she actually fights back. The scene is bloody and everything, but she didn't just lie there and wait for them to finish her off like so many other horror film women.
The best thing about this film is that every single second is dedicated to forwarding the plot. There is no extraneous speeches to forward the theme or create the characters--it is very nice to have a film that doesn't assume that we are stupid. There is some very good dramatic tension and some wonderful twists as characters are tested and changed. That being said this isn't an Oscar film. It is a popcorn film, a fairly straight forward action film. It is, however, refreshingly, an action film that lets you think.
Rating:
Summary: good cop movie
Review: this is more realistic then some may admit. you see it all the time in the stories on tv, reality is twisted to the point where no one knows what the truth really is, best example is michael jackson. everyone has their opinions and the media is a great tool to use if you have the power to get it on your side. that is what this movie is all about.
the movie depicts the evil intentions of 2 immigrants trying to become movie stars by filming their brutal murders. the plot was pretty original. i don't think i have seen any other movie doing this although i may be wrong. it was interesting how they were using the hand held camera video for a lot of the scenes to help with the realism. you can see behind what was being shown on the video he was shooting.
there was quite a bit of satire and irony in this movie. almost to the point of overwhelming, but overall i recommend this movie to anyone who enjoys a good cop movie. i would say that this is somewhat similar to the movie paparazzi. storylines are a bit different, but both show how the media changes things around to make the better story.
Rating: 
Summary: Too Many Ironies in the Fire
Review: "15 Minutes" tries to hard to be socially relevant. Many of us think that the media manipulates our society, and I am always up for a movie where sensationalism is exposed. However, you can try too hard to bring together too many elements and the result is not only unbelievable, but reaches a point of being laughable.
Robert De Niro plays a hotshot cop (Eddie Fleming) who has been made into some sort of superhero cop by the media. Fleming explains to arson investigator Jordy Warsaw (Edward Burns) that the media can be played if you do it right, and he takes advantage of his super cop status to do just that.
Unfortunately for everyone, including Fleming, Warsaw, and a host of innocent bystanders and police, two nut-jobs from Eastern Europe see Fleming on television and think they can commit a lot of crimes, and then use the media and what they think is a faulty system of justice to get off the hook and become rich and famous.
Unfortunately for everyone, most especially the audiences that watch this movie, there are just too many ironies and too many coincidences. While the core idea of the movie has a measure of plausibility, it is how that idea is developed that changes the movie from being an action movie to being a fantasy. The characters change from being believable to being stereotypical and even cartoonish, and there comes a point where the movie becomes some sort of bizarre parody.
Several scenes in this movie are unabashed in their borrowing from other movies. The most obvious is a scene where De Niro is looking in a mirror and talking to himself similar to a well-known scene from "Taxi Driver."
As a side note, this movie also has a difficult time getting off the ground. It took about half the movie or perhaps a bit more until the pieces started coming together. Once the action started the movie moved along quickly, but then the ironies compounded and I alternated between being amused and being appalled at the violence.
If you are looking for a lot of violence and care little for a plot, this movie could be for you, though expect little until the movie moves well along. For everyone else with a sense of taste, either pass this one by or make it a rental.
Rating: 
Summary: Attempts To Be Provokative, Turns Out Ultra-Violent Gore
Review: The ideas behind 15 minutes aren't bad at all. Take one Robert DeNiro, put him in New York, mix him with some American-dream hunting Eastern Europeans on a killing spree, and try to provoke some emotions, and have a sly dig at the American justice system. Lets see...nothing happened...only repulse.
If, like everyone else, you plan on watching this film because DeNiro is in it, you will be dissapointed. He puts in a tired performance, almost as if he knows the film is a load of B.S. The attempt to be hard-hitting goes horribly wrong, instead it's just repulsive over the top violence, and its pointless...naked prostitute gets hacked to pieces, why? There are ways to create provoking films with such violence but they have to have meaning, such as 8mm (the horrible subject of snuff movies, hard-hitting meaningfull film), 15 minutes is far from meaningfull. We all know there are some deranged psychopaths out there doing just that, but when converting it to a film, it needs a deeper meaning, otherwise it turns into melodramatic Hollywood [...].
If you like brain-dead gore and violence, lack of plot and cringing melodrama. Go ahead.
Rating: 
Summary: Sleeper movie will wake you into shuddering dread
Review: 15 Minutes is a horrifying and gritty peek into the injustice of the American legal system and also the news media. Wow, two digs in one film, how can you resist?
Emil Slovak, a Czech National (played by Karel Rodan), and his friend Oleg Razgul, a Russian National (played by Oleg Taktarov), who met in Prague, decide to travel to America, the land of opportunity. Emil wants to hunt down his old crime partner, who took all the money from the robbery he was jailed for, but Oleg is infatuated with American Cinema and wants be a filmmaker.
Immediately upon arriving, Oleg steals a video camera from a store and they are off to confront Emil's old partner and get their money back. But while Oleg films the event, Emil discovers that his portion of the money was already spent, and he kills his friend and friend's wife. Unfortunately, there was someone else watching the murder. Daphne Handlova had been staying with her friends, and fled the apartment after witnessing the murders. An illegal alien herself, she does not want for the police or the killers to find her, but leaves her purse behind in the apartment where Emil discovers who she is.
The apartment is burned to cover the bodies, "A Bohemian Barbeque" says Oleg, which calls in not only successful homicide detective Eddie Flemming (Robert De Niro), but Fire Marshal Jordy Warsaw (Edward Burns) to the scene.
Emil and Oleg get away, but while Emil obsesses with finding Daphne, Oleg obsesses about filming their "Trip to America", killings and all. He believes he is making the greatest movie ever. They begin to watch New York's hot and exploitive news show called "Top Story", anchored by shady newsman/reporter Robert Hawkins (played expertly by Kelsey Grammer).
These three men, Flemming, Warsaw, and Hawkins, become irresistible targets to Emil and Oleg, the two Eastern-European psychopaths believing that controlling and taunting these famous men will give them the recognition they desire.
I don't want to give away too much of the plot, but suffice to say that there is a brutal murder scene where Flemming showcases just how tough a cop he is, and Hawkins will reveal himself as slimiest snake in the media industry, and Emil will learn enough to know that insanity can set him free even if he is caught.
There is action from beginning to end in this movie, a tight and somewhat confusing plot at times, some great acting from both the stars and the supporting cast (including a great character played by David Alan Grier). There is seediness and wretchedness and hopelessness, and an ending that makes the film come together quite nicely. If you are ready for a little brutal cop action in your life, give 15 Minutes a try. Enjoy!
Rating:
Summary: Worth watching for a few reasons:
Review: I only recently saw this movie, instead of back when it was released in 2001. The entire reason I picked it up was because it starred an actor I have recently started to appreciate and notice - Karel Roden.
I will say this to start though - in some peoples minds, this movie was bloody and violent. Personally, I didn't flinch once, and found it to be rather tame actually. There was blood and violence no doubt, but if you're used to movies by people such as Quentin Tarantino, it won't even phase you. In fact, compared to anything Tarantino has done, this really IS tame. Though, for people who aren't used to seeing such movie violence, it may be difficult to watch at a couple parts. Then again, it might not.
I remember seeing the commercials for this movie when it was released, and the point was clear in the commercials. Somewhere in the movie, that point gets lost a few times. It might emerge again in a few spots, but don't expect to come away from this movie with some enlightening moral lesson. It simply isn't there.
That being said though, it was entertaining. And if you watch movies to be entertained for a few hours, you just might enjoy this, as long as you don't go into it with some high expectation. And back to the actor mentioned above, I thought Karel Roden was brilliant in this. He really is from the Czech Republic, so he has had very little exposure in American film yet (this was his first American film, you can catch him in others like Hellboy, Bulletproof Monk, and Blade 2 [in a brief role]). He has a lot of experience in film in CR, and he's one talented actor. Watching him in this film, was redeeming enough for me, and might just be for you also.
Rating:
Summary: A fast-paced, different type of thriller
Review: 15 Minutes is worth the money. It probably will not be the number one DVD in your collection, but you're sure to go back and watch it from time to time. This film gives an interesting, if not frightening, look at the role mass-media play in our country's daily life. We don't think about it, since we are living it... but this film gives us a view of someone who might not be used to the faced paced, 24-hour news cycle lifestyle that most of us live today.
At the center of the movie's plot is a greedy, slick breaking-news style anchor who is given the 'gift' of being the only personality in town to have the near-realtime footage of a string of murders, as they are being committed. He has a moral pause, only for a second, before he unabashedly trumpets the news to the entire world. The rest of the movie deals with the minds of the killers and the techniques used by the authorites to catch them. All in all.. not the best movie out there.. but worth the money.
Rating:
Summary: It Actually Did Work
Review: I got passes to a screning of this film. Waiting in line some of the other folks and I discussed the violence of the video games in the lobby in that polite, well mannered, educated liberal manner. Then we settled in to watch the movie, and got to the climax scene where the good guy punches out the villian. You could literally watch the same group of well educated, properly opinioned liberals sit there, with there hands held out in front of them, perplexed. We knew we were supposed to clap, but then again Kelsey Grammers' character would have tugged at our emotions in the same way to elicit the same response. As such we were left as an impass as to what the correct behavior was, our gut saying clap and our brains saying don't. That is the sheer brillance of this movie--it doesn't say what to think, it just says think.
This movie is very bloody--to the exent that some people wil not want to watch it. If you have a weak stomach turn it off. However, that can be points in its favor. I was particualrly happy in the scene with the blond prostitute. She was the sort of character that only enters the scene to get killed by the bad guys, but she actually fights back. The scene is bloody and everything, but she didn't just lie there and wait for them to finish her off like so many other horror film women.
The best thing about this film is that every single second is dedicated to forwarding the plot. There is no extraneous speeches to forward the theme or create the characters--it is very nice to have a film that doesn't assume that we are stupid. There is some very good dramatic tension and some wonderful twists as characters are tested and changed. That being said this isn't an Oscar film. It is a popcorn film, a fairly straight forward action film. It is, however, refreshingly, an action film that lets you think.
Rating:
Summary: FAME AND ITS FORTUNES
Review: You see it in the tabloid tv shows such as Roseanne, Maury Povich, you name them. As in this film, a family humiliates themselves in front of millions all for that fifteen minutes of fame; singers appear on American Idol and disappear into the mediocrity of their fame, having had that 15 minutes. In this movie, a tv anchorman sinks to new depths to acquire a disgusting videotape of a cop's murder, not realizing that by letting the villains get away, he endorses further murders. All in the name of fame.
We all know that the media has little conscience in its attempts to one up each other, to get the "big story" first; to spread lies and rumors. In this movie, a petty thief who attempts to rob one of the characters is suddenly a hero because the arson investigator handcuffed him to a tree and forgot about him. The "victim" was assaulted by a bag lady and pissed on by a dog, and now he's a hero in the light of the media. Everything that's done is done to manage the impression of what the world thinks of us.
This message is brought home in expert fashion in John Herzfeld's compelling 15 MINUTES.
Robert DeNiro plays a homicide detective who has used the media to its best advantage, and he knows it; Edward Burns is an idealistic young arson investigator who joins in on the investigation of the brutal murder of an immigrant couple; Kelsey Grammer is the acerbic and selfish newscaster; Melina Kanakaredes is the love of DeNiro's life, a news journalist who fears for DeNiro's safety. Capable and strong performances from these actors lay the background for the movie's two most impressive performances: Karel Roden and Oleg Taktarov as the criminals Emil and Oleg; their cold cruelty is frightening; Oleg's fascination with film-making is both comedic and tragic, and the resonance of their performances underscores the other actor's performances as well.
There may be inconsistencies in the plot; there may be some derivative touches, but I found myself glued to the screen and awed by the message this powerful movie sends.
Rating:
Summary: Wildly Uneven
Review: 3 stars may be a bit harsh for a movie with one of the most unsettling scenes I've seen, but the problem with the film is that it never becomes a whole. There's a conflict of tone that's never successfully resolved--director John Herzfeld wants to make a dark comedy full of satire aimed at Jerry Springer, Geraldo Rivera and the like; but he also wants to make a grisly, gritty action film filled with blood, murder, fire, and tragedy. These two aspects rub against one another uncomfortably, and although life may indeed be like that, the juxtaposition doesn't work well in this bit of art. The dichotomy plagues the work further: there is terrific imagery, some great acting, some terrific writing; there's also lots of very typical Hollywood run-of-the-mill work. De Niro, as one of the two protagonists, is superb until the writers feel it necessarly to give him a girlfriend. The other protagonist, played by Edward Burns, is the stereotypical young hothead, who in spite of being an ace fire inspector, can't control himself around other people. I must admit that the two villains are both terrific, in terms of both writing and acting; but a bit of clowning at the end really destroyed the effect of the final scene for me. If you do decide to see the movie--and in spite of my negative comments, the positive aspects of the film (especially the scene with De Niro and the two villians) make it worth viewing, be sure to stay tuned after the credits begin--Kelsey Grammer has a final bit that begins a minute or so into the credits.
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