15 Minutes

Director (The Death and Life of Bobby Z)
Cast
Year 2001
Genre Action

15 Minutes deals with a topic that has probably been spoken about over the past decade to death. In my limited knowledge, 15 Minutes could have been the first movie to deal with the topic. What is the extent to which the media can go to generate stories? What is acceptable and what is not? In the race for the highest TRP is it acceptable to take someone’s life?

Detective Eddie Flemming (Robert De Niro) is one of New York’s finest cops. Well at least he is the most popular if not the best there is. Why is that? He ensures that crime scenes are well covered by the news channels. So, the media gets there as quickly as he does. How cool is that? For the media that is. In return, he gets repeatedly featured in the important news segment and a show that is run by the famous Robert Hawkins (Kelsey Grammer).

As Eddie is going about his day to day attention grabbing activities, 2 Eastern Europeans have made their way into New York City to settle some old scores. A Russian by the name of Emil Slovak (Karel Roden) and a Czech guy called Oleg Razgul (Oleg Taktarov). They are bank robbers and have come to NYC to track down an old partner in crime. A bank robbery from back home which left Emil and Oleg serving hard time.

Oleg is also a movie buff and doesn’t take time to steal a camera from a store. And when they find out that there is no money left (how surprising), Emil decides to cut open his old friend and wife. And as if that was not enough, they torch the place down. But Daphne (Vera Farmiga) sees this from the apartment across. Of course Emil and Oleg cannot take any prisoners.

The amazing part about the story as it unfolds is the manner in which Oleg and Emil actually take advantage of the rot that has set in the system to sell the footage of the killings and some more that they get done along the way to Robert Hawkins’ channel for a mere $1 million. Awesome isn’t it? Harsh truth I guess.

15 Minutes is one of the better movies on the topic. It is of course helped with some strong performances led by the man who played The Raging Bull and ably supported by Edward Burns & Kelsey Grammer. Karel Roden makes your blood crawl & cringe. Oleg Taktarov is more amusing than fearsome – exactly like his character should be. There is also a fleeting glance of the amazingly talented Charlize Theron.

In all, 15 Minutes is a decent watch. The performances prop up the movie to a level that it would not have been able to reach otherwise. But there is something missing in John Herzfeld’s direction that I am unable to place a finger on. Therefore, I will go with a 6 on 10. Watchable on DVD.

Watch the trailer at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCa4c8D5THc

Man On A Ledge

Asger Leth – quite a different name right? He is new to this business with the exception of one arbit TV Series which sounds half French very honestly. Ghosts of Cité Soleil. That’s what it is called. Sounds weird right. But let me tell you that Asger Leth knows how to direct a thriller. I was slowly but surely taken into Man On A Ledge. The trailers seemed interesting enough and the movie turned out to be even better. Asger seems to be one who understands the genre of Thriller movies better than most new directors.

The essence of a Thriller being to begin slowly but surely. Set up the tempo by giving the audience a background of what exactly has happened. Also give the audience a sneak peek into what could happen. Throw in a couple of twists and turns in between this entire shebang to throw the audience just that little bit off track. And then again get them back just as they are about to give up on what is happening. And finish off in style with an ending that the audience could have predicted but yet couldn’t have because of the twists that you have thrown in. That is what one would call great narration. And Asger Leth seems to have been taught by someone who really knows how to create a thriller. All credit to Asger that he has been able to convert what he has learnt into very solid execution.

What helps Asger is also very good support from a cast which is made up of reasonably well known names but no huge stars with the exception of one Ed Harris who plays a negative role – probably the first time after The Rock (which was more of an anti hero). But he sure does deliver. He does have the strongest screen presence of the cast undeniably. Sam Worthington is quite solid as well as the protagonist. Does get over shadowed by Harris in the few scenes that they are with each other but that’s Harris’s experience which gets the better of Worthington.

Elizabeth Banks is probably the only weak link in the entire movie. She has performed reasonably well but in some scenes, where she is unable to pull off a convincing scene. Like when she tries to get a fingerprint off Nick Cassidy by pretending to be a smoker – oops scene very honestly. Doesn’t come off well at all. And a dialogue or 2 where the intensity just doesn’t come through. Other notable performances from Jamie Bell as Nick’s brother Joey and the sizzling Genesis Rodriguez as Angie. Genesis actually shows that there is some acting talent other than just sizzling hot looks.

Net net, Worth spending time and hard earned money for this 6.5 on 10. Deducted half a point for some basic consistency errors. But don’t worry. Most people will not get the errors. Worth watching.

Watch the trailer at http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi4159021337/