March 8–15, 2001

movies

Turning Back the Clock

15 Minutes lags behind the times.

by Cindy Fuchs

15 Minutes

Directed by John Herzfeld
A New Line release

Shooting blanks: Burns and De Niro get their guns jammed in 15 Minutes .

John Herzfeld’s 15 Minutes opens with that too-familiar handheld video footage that passes for "edgy" technique. Two scruffy-looking characters are arriving in New York, and as one of them, Emil (Karel Roden), fidgets a bit under the watchful eye of the customs agent, his pal Oleg (Oleg Taktarov) just keeps on taping — the grumpy folks next to him on line, some pretty girls, the increasingly discomfited Emil. "Stop fooling around," Emil snarls. Undeterred, Oleg smiles, "I want to document our trip to America." Though they’re not precisely in synch at this moment, it’s not long before these villainous partners learn to appreciate what they can do for one another. (Because the movie is by-the-numbers, you know they’re villainous because, in addition to looking rough and unshaven, they have Russian and Czechoslovakian accents.) Come to collect some money from a former third partner, Emil and Oleg immediately get themselves into deep trouble, each fulfilling the stereotype that he’s assigned during the film’s first few minutes. As sociopathic Emil commits a series of brutal murders and tortures, Frank Capra-wannabe Oleg eagerly tapes everything. Here they form something of a perfect union, calculating that their videos will simultaneously grant them a stunning Jerry Springer-ish fame and legal absolution, since they must be insane to tape such outrages.

While Oleg and Emil concoct this plot, they’re being tracked equally vehemently by both the cops and the tabloid reporters. The most egregiously slimy reporter is played by Kelsey Grammer (his boss is sleek and creepy Kim Cattrall); the head cop on the case is charismatic homicide detective Eddie Flemming (Robert De Niro), aided by partner Leon (Avery Brooks) and an idealistic arson investigator named Jordy (Edward Burns). While Jordy is set up as Eddie’s moralistic counterpart (so they can go through the usual buddy dynamic, i.e., antipathy turning into mutual admiration), the fireman is introduced in a very strange fashion: On his way to the arson scene that will bring him together with Eddie (Emil has burned up his first two victims’ apartment), Jordy comes on a suspected mugger (David Alan Grier) in the park and handcuffs him — quite illegally — to a tree so he can run off to what he considers his real job. Why this encounter in the park is even in the movie remains a mystery.

At the crime scene, Jordy impresses Eddie with his incisive arson investigator’s detective work, while Eddie shows off his expertise in using the press to his own advantage. At first, Eddie’s cynicism appears alarmingly complete, as he’s actually dating a beautiful TV reporter, Nicolette (Melina Kanakaredes). Though the film uses the romance to humanize Supercop, the device is so trite that it’s difficult to read it as legitimate. As per the usual cop-flick plot, the boy-bonding gets more attention than the hetero-romancing, which may be just as well, since, when Eddie gets all syrupy during an attempted marriage proposal to lovely Nicolette, he’s actually less appealing than when he’s strutting and sniping at that cute whippersnapper Jordy.

Jordy also has his share of girl-complications, in the form of a beautiful call-girl who witnesses one of Emil’s murders, Daphne (Vera Farmiga), employed by a service run by Rose, played by Charlize Theron in a Lulu wig — further proof, if any was needed, that Theron needs to start discriminating when selecting her roles. But Rose is no more substantive than Nicolette. Every woman in 15 Minutes is a function of the film’s overriding thematic concerns — to get tough guy cops and villains (and viewers, perhaps) excited, it’s apparently necessary to deliver damsels in potential and actual distress. There’s surely nothing newsworthy in this observation, but it does speak to the film’s general datedness. For all its insistence on a kind of cutting-edgy relevance with regard to today’s reality and tabloid-TV overkill, the film is occasionally almost quaint. The whole idea is really so 15 minutes ago.