Review of 15 Minutes (2001) by Alex K — 11 Sep 2014

(59%).

A real piece of all over the place Hollywood that shuffles itself around like a deck of cards every other scene. The main focus is not on DeNiro, or even Edward Burns, but on two eastern European maniacs who feature heavily throughout. What makes this so uneven is the tone. It starts as a crime thriller, then there's some breaking news exploitation satire with Kelsey Grammer, then DeNiro comes in turning it more into a cop action movie, then there's a series of quite sweet romantic scenes that come in between footage the two bad guys filming themselves murdering someone making everything feel more than a little slapdash. Yet it sort of works mainly because everything happens so fast, and there's so much of it to get through. The fact that the cast is more than capable doesn't hurt much either, and it is quite well made too. It's just action cop movie thrillers, romance, a playful sense of humour, and snuff movies all mixed together doesn't create a great recipe for success.