Review: Tune in, turn off, walk out

Geoff Carter

Friday, March 9, 2001 | 8:44 a.m.

15 Minutes

Grade: * 1/2 Starring: Robert De Niro, Edward Burns, Kelsey Grammer and Karel Koden. Screenplay: John Herzfeld. Director: John Herzfeld. Rated: R for strong violence, language and some sexuality. Running time: 120 minutes.

As a movie-going public, we ask so little of cop dramas -- and Hollywood scrambles to meet that lower denominator. "15 Minutes" is practically a benchmark for that kind of underachievement -- a middling thriller that hammers you with ham-fisted moralizing, insults your intelligence as a matter of routine and wastes the talents of its cast.

Elements from "Network," "Dirty Harry," "Being There," "The Player" and even "Backdraft" are laid over the story so liberally that one could mistake "15 Minutes" for a split-genre homage, if writer/director John Herzfeld weren't so busy patting himself on the back. He seems awfully proud of the way he takes "Hard Copy" tabloid news shows to task (are any of those still on the air?) and establishes New York's police and fire departments as simpatico groups of media-hungry opportunists, but does so at the expense of the flow of the story.

"15 Minutes" stars a disinterested Robert De Niro as Eddie Flemming, a media-savvy New York homicide cop (the acronym "NYPD" is seldom mentioned, if at all) who ends up in an unlikely partnership with an arson investigator (Edward Burns, groomed as a gangly, pubescent Richard Gere). The two are thrown together while investigating a deadly fire set by cold-blooded killer Emil Slovak (Karen Roden) and his cinema-obsessed partner, Oleg Razgul (Oleg Taktarov).

As it turns out, these two wholly unknown actors -- Czech and Russian respectively -- give the film's best performances. They come on like "Saturday Night Live's" Festrunk brothers, proudly wearing every Eastern-European-in-America caricature -- the star-struck eyes, the rampaging hormones.

But as the film progresses, real characters grow from the tired jokes. Roden's Emil becomes a chilling psychopath, and Oleg's love of American cinema builds him into an almost endearing character. (The preview audience missed the humor in Oleg's constant use of "Frank Capra" as an alias.) Emil kills, Oleg videotapes the deaths and a dirty journalist (Kelsey Grammer) sells his soul to get his hands on the tapes.

The media-parody elements of "15 Minutes" more or less sink the picture. Many characters are left undeveloped; I could have stood to see more of Vera Famiga as illegal Czech immigrant Daphne, a witness to the Emil's first killings and an unrealized love interest for Burns. Avery Brooks -- one of the most criminally underused character actors in film -- has little to do but look peeved. And even De Niro hastens an exit from the film before the end of the second act. Can't blame him.

The job of carrying the film is left to actor/director Burns ("The Brothers McMullen"), who has yet to score an acting gig as solid as his motor-mouthed turn in "Saving Private Ryan." His high-pitched Bostonese seems as inappropriate to the New York City Fire Department -- and the film -- as his scraggly haircut, whiny "Take me with you" demeanor and absurd burst of vigilantism near the end of the film.

Burns' Jordy Warsaw has no character traits outside of those noted by other characters, and his friendship with De Niro -- forged over the course of a single day -- is as phony as they come. His character is given a brief insight into the killers' motivations early in "15 Minutes," but by the third act he seems to have lost it, and proceeds as if some textbook movie cop has dropped into his body and taken over.

True to its tired, Andy Warhol-derived moniker, the most insultingly glib part of "15 Minutes" is its final, cliche-ridden final quarter-hour. Let's just say that I've certainly never seen another cop movie in which the beleaguered hero punches out the scummy journalist who tried to wreck his career. Do you suppose Herzfeld might start a trend?