A homicide detective and a fire marshal must stop a pair of murderers who commit videotaped crimes to become media darlings.A homicide detective and a fire marshal must stop a pair of murderers who commit videotaped crimes to become media darlings.A homicide detective and a fire marshal must stop a pair of murderers who commit videotaped crimes to become media darlings.
- Awards
- 1 nomination
- Director
- Writer
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaCharlize Theron appeared for free, as a "thank you" to John Herzfeld for giving her the breakthrough role in 2 Days in the Valley (1996).
- GoofsWhen Jordy first saw Daphne she had her hair down and was wearing a collared blouse, but when he gave the description she was drawn with a ponytail with a blue holder, and straps on bare shoulders. When we next see Daphne she is wearing exactly what she was in the drawing, even though no one had yet seen her in that outfit.
- Quotes
Emil Slovak: I love America. No one is responsible for what they do.
- Crazy creditsA film by Oleg Rasgul is superimposed over the final clip of footage from Oleg's camera near the end.
- Alternate versionsInfiniFilm DVD includes deleted scenes with commentary: Emil forces Oleg to carry their baggage to the apartment; Jordy is visited by an annoying arsonist at his office; Emil helps a blind woman cross the street; extended, uncut scene outside the apartment fire set up for Jordy where the annoying arsonist returns; Jordy chases half-naked Oleg from a hotel across Times Square into a movie theater showing 2 Days in the Valley (1996) and mistakes on-screen gunfire for actual gunfire; extended scene of Emil in prison, explaining why he helped the blind woman.
- SoundtracksLa Guitaristic House Organisation
Written by Jean-Philippe Freu, Patrice Carrie and Jean-Louis Palumbo
Performed by Rinôçérôse
Courtesy of V2 Records
Featured review
Bad Czech
Some films get extra points from me for ambition. Even in failure, they raise the bar. This film aims high and fails.
What this film has is a very clever self-referential notion: another film about films, but one that directly indicts its own audience. It also has two excellent bad guys. These guys really move like East Europeans (like Liam in 'Schindler'), which starts out with a set of movements that is rare in film, and adds an unusual logic with a visual metaphor.
Plus we have deNiro in a role that is more apt than any of his recent ones. He plays someone who lives to be seen by a camera. (He practices his proposal as if it were to be filmed -- shades of "Taxi Driver" -- plus his intended is reporter!) He uses a different set of moves than the visitors, and which are natural to the man, and are already common enough to be self-parodied. But watching an actor act like an actor is a treat, especially when we have two guys who turn into actors and a slew of TeeVee people who are in front of cameras, but who don't know the moves. Then deNiro gets killed. That's novel. Theron has a powerful few minutes. Farmiga is lovely, playing much the same as her "Autumn" role.
With this alone, Soderburgh could have done really well. This could be the sort of stuff that would make up for Ritchie's fluff problem. But in Herzfeld's hands, it turns to goo, because he lards it up with so many formulaic devices.
The primary problem is the Burns character, Warsaw. Everything about him is tired. This is a fellow that avoids the camera, avoids people, acts as the center of intelligence, the detective, the spine of the film. But he actually plays none of these things, just an automatic device, played by a rank mugger. This problem of stereotype is compounded by the introduction of the anchor and lawyer. Its the easiest thing in the world to poke fun at these smarmy types. But what we have here are cardboard.
This formulaic machinery progressively drags things into the mediocre until the banal ending, with the hero walking away having tasted his revenge. Oh why do writers not give endings the attention they deserve? Why does Hollywood force such drek, always on the end?
What this film has is a very clever self-referential notion: another film about films, but one that directly indicts its own audience. It also has two excellent bad guys. These guys really move like East Europeans (like Liam in 'Schindler'), which starts out with a set of movements that is rare in film, and adds an unusual logic with a visual metaphor.
Plus we have deNiro in a role that is more apt than any of his recent ones. He plays someone who lives to be seen by a camera. (He practices his proposal as if it were to be filmed -- shades of "Taxi Driver" -- plus his intended is reporter!) He uses a different set of moves than the visitors, and which are natural to the man, and are already common enough to be self-parodied. But watching an actor act like an actor is a treat, especially when we have two guys who turn into actors and a slew of TeeVee people who are in front of cameras, but who don't know the moves. Then deNiro gets killed. That's novel. Theron has a powerful few minutes. Farmiga is lovely, playing much the same as her "Autumn" role.
With this alone, Soderburgh could have done really well. This could be the sort of stuff that would make up for Ritchie's fluff problem. But in Herzfeld's hands, it turns to goo, because he lards it up with so many formulaic devices.
The primary problem is the Burns character, Warsaw. Everything about him is tired. This is a fellow that avoids the camera, avoids people, acts as the center of intelligence, the detective, the spine of the film. But he actually plays none of these things, just an automatic device, played by a rank mugger. This problem of stereotype is compounded by the introduction of the anchor and lawyer. Its the easiest thing in the world to poke fun at these smarmy types. But what we have here are cardboard.
This formulaic machinery progressively drags things into the mediocre until the banal ending, with the hero walking away having tasted his revenge. Oh why do writers not give endings the attention they deserve? Why does Hollywood force such drek, always on the end?
helpful•96
- tedg
- Mar 12, 2001
Details
- Release date
- Countries of origin
- Languages
- Also known as
- Fifteen Minutes
- Filming locations
- Production companies
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Budget
- $60,000,000 (estimated)
- Gross US & Canada
- $24,403,552
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $10,523,154
- Mar 11, 2001
- Gross worldwide
- $56,359,980
- Runtime2 hours
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 2.35 : 1
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