15 Minutes
Steve Kinsey reviews the DVD release of 15 Minutes starring Robert De-Niro and Kelsy Grammer and finds a reasonable if slightly disjointed thriller that pokes a few digs at the media.
Oleg and Emil are Europeans (A Russian and a Check) who come to America to pick up some money that is owed to them. Within a very short time of being in New York Oleg steals a video camera and starts to make his own movie of their every action. They murder and torch their ex-colleagues who no longer have the money that was owed to them and Oleg video’s the whole thing.
After watching American Television they come to believe that the American Tabloid press can make killers look like innocent victims and will do anything for a story. This sets them upon a violent spree of crimes that puts them directly across the path of media-idol NYPD policeman Eddie Fleming (De-Niro) and Fire Marshal Jody Warsaw (Edward Burns).
Review
I’m not entire surely what to make of this film, overall I quite enjoyed it and there were several times when I was well engrossed in the story. However, I found that I couldn’t really get a feel for what the film wanted to be or what it was trying to say. Whilst at times it’s clearly making a statement about the media and its role in the cycle of violent crime, the plot seems to wander off in other directions several times throughout the film.
The cast in general put in very good performances, in particular De-Niro and Kelsey Grammer I thought put in particularly strong performances. I’ve not seen Edward Burns before but from his role here I’m sure we’ll be seeing more from him. The problem for me was not the cast but probably the director’s vision. Sometimes the film came across as a satirical dig at the media, whilst other times it was an excessively violent crime thriller.
While I’m sure this combination could work in the right setting, for me the random jumps between comedy and gory violence mad the whole film uncomfortable to watch. As I said it’s not a terribly bad film, but it’s certainly not one that I want to add to my personal collection.
Video/Audio
As you might expect New Line once again delivers a very nice transfer. The 2.35:1 Anamorphic widescreen picture has no sign of any grain or digital artefacts and all colours are clear and sharp. There are several scenes throughout the film that use a handheld video camera with effects like mosaic, polarising and night vision and the disk deals with them without any problems.
The disk comes with a Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack and a DTS 5.1 track. I watched the film in DTS and could find no problems at all with it. All channels get a constant workout with some scenes giving the sub channel a nice pounding.
Extras
There are two documentaries on the disk; the first of these is called True Tabloid Stars and run for around 15-minutes. The first contains a series of interview clips with celebrities from the tabloid media including Jerry Springer and Maury Pauvich amongst others. Some of those interviewees try to defend their style of program while others say that tabloid goes too far. The second documentary is an odd little round the table discussion program called Does Crime Pay . It’s just over 21-mins long and features amongst others an Attorney, a Writer and an LAPD detective who was involved in the O.J. Simpson case. It’s broken into sections with name like “Can criminals really profit from their crimes?” and the panel of “experts” discuss the subject. Although the two documentaries don’t really have anything to do with the film, they are an interesting piece of viewing in their own right.
It’s hard to know what to make of the Directors (John Herzfeld) Commentary . While it does often give lots of interesting information on the making of the film, it seem like at times the director doesn’t really have much to say. During these moments he starts discussing what’s going happening on screen. Now personally, I don’t need someone explaining the on screen action to me as I can see it for myself. That’s not to say that it’s a terrible commentary, at times it’s very interesting. It’s just that those interesting parts come in patches through the whole thing.
There’s a collection of six short Deleted Scenes , which vary in length from just under one minute to nearly four. All scenes feature a director’s commentary. There a section of two Extended Scenes from the film that shows all the footage taken by Oleg (Oleg Taktarov) using the handheld video camera featured in the film. There’s a 10-minute long selection of Rehearsal Scenes , these scenes contain a small window containing the final film footage so that it can be compared to the rehearsal footage.
There is also an extra available that has to be accessed via the Audio/Subtitle menu as opposed to the extras menu. This is an additional subtitle track called Fact Track. This pops up with various facts during the film, on a whole range of subjects. Sometimes it contains information on the film making, other times it contains facts about the media or New York City etc.
Finally there is a Music Video, a Theatrical Trailer and a selection of Filmographies. Apart from the main menu, all menus are static. Incidentally the main menu is in the style of a news program (including a stock ticker) with Kelsey Grammer. If you get this disk I would quickly skip past this menu before watching the film first time as if you listen to it long enough it contains an unbelievably big spoiler. The film is split into 21 chapters and subtitles are available in English.
Score
With a mediocre film comes a well-packaged disk from New Line. The video and audio quality are both excellent and there’s a very reasonable set of extras included. With this in mind I’m going to give the disk a slightly above average 3 out of 5.
This film was supplied for review by VIEWDVD. VIEWDVDis a UK based online rental service with over 2500 titles in stock. They have a fixed monthly membership service with pricing starting at just £10 per month. You can order as many titles as you choose and there is no limited rental period.
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