Review of 15 Minutes (2001) by Ricardo G — 26 Feb 2009

A mixup of both a cynical satire and a protest-comedy, with a hard drama and a dark violent thriller. This movie manages to both 'suffer' from such a harsh (but bold!) mixup of genres and 'earn' from it.

It deals with several - very very interesting, heavy-weighted, important and relevant subjects. It manages to put into question and to heavily and bluntly criticize the American justice and court system and its morals - and describe it - as a corrupt, money-driven system - which is controlled by a corrupt money-driven, rating-seeken media, news and entertainment system.

At least a small amount of all of these suggestions - is probably reflected in some way in the *real* reality of those institutes (but, of-course, the plot of the movie - takes it "to the extreme".

The premise of the movie - is based on a (real and evident) flaw in the American justice system. A court defense line (and rule), known as "Double Jeopardy" (wikipedia it) - that forbids a defendant from being tried and sentenced twice for the same crime on the same set of facts - thus allowing criminals to plead for "insanity" in their trials for their crimes (even murders) - and let the court send them to a 'mentally-ill asylum', and then after awhile - they will be released once they 'get better' - and walk-out unharmed, and unpunished for their crimes, thus abusing the 'justice-system' which allows them to walk without real punishment - and with no ability to put them to court once again over the crimes they committed.

Although the movie suffers from weak and dry dialogues and... a not so stunning actor-direction - it manages to 'get to you' - and it's graphical violent imagery, disturbing as it may be - works in the sense that the message manages to get inside your head.

Another point this movie deals with (and again, so bluntly criticize it) - is the fact that the media in the US (we are talking about the way it is described in this movie, which, again, is somehow reflected in the real reality) is way too 'powerful' - in a sense that it can greatly affect public opinions just by showing things - that does not necessarily comply with the truth and facts behind them. It can make an innocent man a 'criminal' - just by showing bits and odds of some footage of him - without giving the background, and the facts behind it - and people will 'buy' it (or vice verse - showing a dangerous criminal as an 'honest and innocent citizen').

These are all serious subjects - who gets more and more relevant - and I've never seen a movie that deals with them so 'out of the open' - especially not a commercial hollywoodian movie.

[kind-of spoilers:].

Because it's an american movie - the bad guy loses at the end - BUT - not because of the court-system - and not because of a fictional 'docureality' Cops-like TV show, depicted in the movie, which show crimes - and pay the bad guy a million dollar for the rights to show and screen one of his killings on TV -.

He loses because of 'betraying' his accomplice (who is a 'film-fanatic').

Thus, the movie - still manages to keep the viewer feeling 'this is wrong' - even though the bad guy 'gets punished' (in some way) at the end.

[end kind-of spoilers].

As mentioned, this movie can't seem to 'decide' if his dealing with those subjects 'seriously' and 'dramatically', or 'cynically' and 'humoristically' - thus creating some amount of confusion for the viewer - which, in itself, is not necessarily a bad thing - as it causes you to stop - and think.

Worth watching, anyway...