Rated R - Running Time: 2:00 - Released 3/9/01
FIFTEEN MINUTES
Rated R - Running Time: 2:00 - Released 3/9/01
Fifteen Minutes is one of those good movies that could
have been great if they had just made the script a little more
credible. But dang it, they didn't. Written and directed by John
Herzfeld (2 Days in the Valley), the film is truly gripping
and features some well-crafted performances, and its primary message
is altogether salient and thought-provoking. But the absurdity
of a few important details impairs its ability to deliver that
message.
The film stars Robert De Niro as Eddie Flemming, a New York
investigator who has become locally famous through his regular
appearance on a hard-hitting TV newsmagazine produced and anchored
by the evilly opportunistic Robert Hawkins (Kelsey Grammer). Hawkins
is one of those two-faced TV reporters essayed so often in film,
a man who would sell his own mother to get the story, whose motto
is "if it bleeds, it leads." The popularity of the show,
and of Eddie in particular, intrigues two Eastern European immigrants
named Emil (Karel Roden) and Oleg (Oleg Taktarov), who love videotaping
themselves almost as much as they love killing people. Hoping
to capitalize on a perceived flaw in the American justice system,
they plan to sell a tape of one of their murders to Hawkins and
then plead insanity, thus avoiding prison and achieving their
fifteen minutes of fame. Only in America. However, their scheme
begins to go awry with the appearance of Eddie's friend, Fire
Marshal Jordy Warsaw (Edward Burns, Saving
Private Ryan). While Jordy's lack of a badge prevents
him from the kind of access accorded to Eddie, it also allows
him to deal with the killers without that annoying hindrance of
the law. But his feelings for a beautiful witness (Vera Farmiga)
threaten to push him over the emotional edge and wreck his investigation,
not to mention his career.
Fifteen Minutes makes, or attempts to make, a valid statement about the U.S. legal system, which does sometimes seem to cater more to the perpetrators of crimes than to the victims. It attacks in particular the oft-invoked "temporary insanity" plea (ah, yes, temporary insanity, the only medical condition discovered by lawyers instead of doctors — I believe the most common symptom is the itchy trigger finger) which is heard in so many murder cases. But Herzfeld's heavy-handed approach, with broadly drawn characters and frankly outrageous circumstances, pumps a little too much Hollywood into the situation for reality. In particular, Grammer's frothing media villain is too over-the-top to permit the suspension of disbelief, not so much because of the actor's performance as how the character is written. De Niro and Burns both give meaningful performances, however, and even more unsettlingly real are Roden and Taktarov as the Czech/Russian duo of killers whose differing opinions about who is running the show ultimately brings down the curtain. ****