15 Minutes is a thriller one needs to think about for a while, maybe even sleep on it, especially before writing any comments. I got the movie on DVD two days ago and I hardly couldn't wait to watch it, because I had already read quite a few comments, mostly negative one's, on it over the past few months. At first I was kind of disappointed. I was not the kind of movie I had expected. I was hoping to see a movie as great as `Heat' or `Ronin'. But one cannot compare these three movies. They are completely different. So I let my first impressions rest for a while and watched the movie the next day a second time. 15 Minutes is not as bad a movie after all. It has its good parts, though I would prefer some things to be different.

The movie clearly shows how greedy and immoral the media can be if it comes to win ratings and get some money, even though it appears to be overdone in some parts. `Bad news is good news!' That is how it has always been and that is how it will always be, as long as there is an audience. Who would watch a news channel with only good news? People want sensation, even though they don't want to admit it. But there is certainly a limit to what the media should broadcast. In this movie the media exceeds this limit by far. Furthermore the film quite well points out the problem with the insanity plea. Some critics say the film glorifies violence, which is not right. The two bad guys in this movie are so ugly and their crimes are so heinous, one cannot but loathe their deeds. I also want to mention how well chosen the cast is. Robert DeNiro is, as always, brilliant is his role. His performance is definitely the highlight in this movie. The action scenes are very well done too.

What I didn't like is the way the story goes in some parts. For example how the two criminals get access to Eddy's (Robert DeNiro) apartment. A famous detective just doesn't make a stupid mistake like this. Then the bad guy Oleg with the digital camcorder acts just way too silly, which lets him appear rather unrealistic to me. Even though he is meant to be crazy, his stupid behavior goes way too far. His character can not be taken seriously. Edward Burns as the arson investigator also has to act a little too unprofessional at times, which doesn't add anything positive to his character's credibility. All this gives the whole story an unrealistic touch from time to time, which is very sad. In general I don't like a movie to be cut down just to get it to an 2-hour length. Most of the time I prefer to have the deleted scenes put back in again, but this movie is really better off without them. The final scene has an interesting twist, but the coincidence with Nicolette is just too farfetched. Oleg's final appearance looks ridiculous and doesn't fit into the whole tragic, unless it were supposed to be a comedy. It is a tense thriller, with some suspense, though only two scenes really kept me on the edge of my seat. I also missed scenes introducing some more the characters played by Robert DeNiro and Edward Burns.

Nevertheless I rank it a 7 out of 10.

No doubt many of us have heard Andy Warhol's assertion that everyone will be famous for a quarter of an hour: a person commits some heinous crime and gets his face all over the cover of every major newspaper and on the nightly news, but then disappears into the annals of history. So, the movie "15 Minutes" plays off of this idea. It portrays a Russian and a Czech coming to New York to deal with a man who owes them money, but then find something even better: they murder people and videotape their delicts. Needless to say, the media is only too happy to make hay of it.

Now for the movie's aspect that I didn't like. I am getting a little tired of movies making Russians (and in this case, also Czechs) the bad guys. I know that geopolitics was dominated for over forty years by the Cold War, but aren't we through portraying Slavic people as villains? I spent autumn, 2005, in St. Petersburg, where I lived with a local family (and I enjoyed it there very much); I then spent autumn, 2006, in Yekaterinburg, where I lived with a local family (I enjoyed it there very much). So I don't care if we get a little unnerved by anything that Vladimir Putin says (you gotta admit that Bush's plans to stick missiles in Poland and the Czech Republic is gonna scare people there); we should treat Russia as our friend.

But anyway, it's otherwise a really good movie. Starring Robert DeNiro, Edward Burns, Kelsey Grammar and Kim Cattrall.

Tabloid TV host Robert Hawkins (Kelsey Grammar) rides along with his drunken friend Detective Eddie Flemming (Robert De Niro). Arson investigator Jordy Warsaw (Edward Burns) uncovers two people murdered in a deliberate fire. He finds witness Daphne Handlova (Vera Farmiga). They follow the crime spree by two eastern European criminals who become enamored with their new American media world.

The movie seems to be trying to make a point about tabloid journalism. The problem is that it's so heavy-handed and fake. The performances are broad and the characters are cliché. The jabs are not sharp. It's almost a satire except people get brutally murdered and it's not funny. Any compelling points are shouted down by the characters. The criminal duo could be in a violent comedy. The pairing of De Niro and Burns could be a dynamic cop duo. There are some good possibilities but there is simply so much of everything.