Taglines: “In the future, everyone will be famous for 15 minutes.” – Andy Warhol, 1967
When Eastern European criminals Oleg and Emil come to New York City to pick up their share of a heist score, Oleg steals a video camera and starts filming their activities, both legal and illegal. When they learn how the American media circus can make a remorseless killer look like the victim and make them rich, they target media-savvy NYPD Homicide Detective Eddie Flemming and media-naive FDNY Fire Marshal Jordy Warsaw, the cops investigating their murder and torching of their former criminal partner, filming everything to sell to the local tabloid TV show “Top Story.”
15 Minutes is a 2001 German-American crime thriller film starring Robert De Niro and Edward Burns. Its story revolves around a homicide detective (De Niro) and a fire marshal (Burns) who team up to stop a pair of Eastern European murderers (Karel Roden and Oleg Taktarov) who are videotaping their crimes in order to become rich and famous. The title is a reference to the Andy Warhol quotation, “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.”
The film was shot on location in New York City and Los Angeles from May to July 1999. It was originally slated to be released by New Line Cinema in the spring of 2000, with theatrical trailers appearing in late 1999. For reasons unknown, the film was pulled from the spring 2000 schedule and then delayed until the following year, on March 1, 2001.
The film grossed $24,403,552 domestically in the United States and Canada. It made a further $31,956,428 internationally, for a worldwide total of $56,359,980 against a production budget of $42 million.
Film Review for 15 Minutes
Where are lots of Issues in this chaotic, over-long thriller, or rather bite-sized Issue McNuggets, paraded under the banner of that cliched Warhol quote. This just in! The news is being turned into one big pseudo-event! Reality is twisted by the media! Celebrity culture is taking over everything!
But guess what? It’s wicked old television that’s at fault – rather than, say, the movie business. Robert De Niro plays a famous New York cop who knows how to get the media on his side – and he’s secretly dating a beautiful TV news reporter. Edward Burns is a naive young fire marshal helping De Niro on an arson-murder killing spree, the perpetrators being Russian and Czech gangsters who plan to video their crimes, plead insanity and sell their footage to an unscrupulous Hard Copy-style journalist, played by Kelsey Grammer.
There is something smug and exploitative about these hand-wringingly earnest themes, and the way we are invited to give a solemn and faintly contrite assent to their importance. And yet writer-director-producer John Herzfeld supplies a mad, brawling energy, along with an unexpected plot twist, which partly redeems this implausible tale.
15 Minutes (2001)
Directed by: John Herzfeld
Starring: Robert De Niro, Edward Burns, Kelsey Grammer, Avery Brooks, Oleg Taktarov, Melina Kanakaredes, Vera Farmiga, Karel Roden, John DiResta, James Handy
Screenplay by: John Herzfeld
Production Design by: Mayne Berke
Cinematography by: Jean-Yves Escoffier
Film Editing by: Steven Cohen
Costume Design by: April Ferry
Set Decoration by: Casey Hallenbeck
Music by: Anthony Marinelli, J. Peter Robinson
MPAA Rating: R for strong violence, language and some sexuality.
Distributed by: New Line Cinema
Nelease Date: March 1, 2001
Visits: 456
