18 Minutes (1935)

Sickening mindless violence
I strongly regret I watched this movie. It is so emotionally disturbing! It contains multiple scenes of unbelievably brutal murders, usually followed by arsons. Do not expose yourself to these images -- they are totally sickening.

Good intentions ...
The title of this movie refers to the well known American saying of someone having their "15 minutes of fame" and of course the media are only too happy to keep the myth alive. The moral bankruptcy of the media is at the core of this movie, intertwined with the flaws of the judicial system.

Oleg and Emil respectively are a Russian and a Czech, that want to make it in the US with their very personal version of living the American dream. They videotape a series of murders and try to hock these fruits of their labour to the media. Lighting their way on the road of this American tradition is a notorious criminal who had been found guilty on a series of murders, manages to get an insanity plee and subsequently sells the rights to his story in a million dollar deal.

Attempts to obstruct Oleg and Emil in achieving their goal is Eddie Flemming (de Niro), police detective, media celebrity, flamboyant and experienced who always does well in front of a camera with juicy stories and arrests. He's put on their case and finds himself partnered with fire inspector Jordy Warsaw (Edward Burns) who gets involved after one of Oleg and Emil's pr-stunts includes torching an entire appartment block, with its inhabitants still inside that is.I will not give away how it all ends, but will divulge that a pretty big surprise is in store for de Niro's character.

On first sight it's pretty standard Hollywood fare and in part that's true, the obligatory ingredients to a crime story are there. What lifts the movie just a notch above the average are four things:
- The excellent cast
- The sharp attack on the media
- The equally sharp attack on the judicial system
- The manipulation of the audience

The latter I should explain: The viewer is manipulated into feeling sympathy to some degree for the two villains who commit the most terrible and atrocious crimes, giving him a firsthand experience as to how easy it is that these kind of psychopaths can become media "heroes". It reminds us of our own dark side, the fascination we have for this kind of criminals, we want to see and it's never enough, the way people look at someone, just to pick a real event I read in a newspaper, being kicked to death and everybody looking on transfixed but no one interferes and not just only out of fear. Man has a dark fascination with violence and crime, if that weren't the case, then all these reality cop tv shows wouldn't have the ratings they have and they would have disappeared from tv. The fact that these kind of shows, covering the whole spectrum from petty crime to the most serious variety (like a documentary series portraying the most notorious US serial killers), have only increased in popularity over the years, which saids enough.

In this light I believe we should very much understand that an accusation towards the media indirectly is also a moral finger pointing at us and to me that is the most important effect of the movie, though one may easily choose to ignore this aspect and simply come to the conclusion of having watched an average cops & robbers movie.

Unfortunately there's also a lot to be said against this movie: its themes have been addressed before and in most ways I regret to say much better. Films like "Broadcast News" and "Network" come to mind when it comes to critically focussing on the media, while a movie like "Natural Born Killers" like this movie links the glorification of violence in the media with our own part in it and in a far superior way than "15 Minutes".
De Niro is acting on auto-pilot and has effectively the movie stolen from him by the dynamic duo Karel Roden and Oleg Taktarov, both quite unknown at the time. Naturally they couldn't leave well enough alone and a contrived love story was thrown into the already convoluted mix.

Nevertheless it's a movie that is worth a look, but I don't think it will stand many repeated viewings.

A tale of media
On the lines of Wag the Dog, but nowhere near as powerfully satiric/dark, is 15 Minutes. The basic undercurrent of the movie is the theme of media, its influence on people and the kind of perceptions & distortions that it can create. Somewhere, at least in the screenplay, there is a bit of lampooning of the USofA, not just the way the media controls people, but also in the aspect of the legal systems - the double jeopardy law & the "unable to stand trial" on grounds of insanity and stuff. Having said that, the movie does provide a sharp look into media & its effects in one dimension.
In the backdrop of this scenario comes yet another strong performance by De Niro & Burns. The characters are well fleshed out and played quite well by their cast. The liberal smattering of Czech & Russian influences gives the movie an interesting twist. And therein is threaded the plot, two guys coming to the US as tourists and trying to make it rich quick by beating the system. There are elements of the movie which are cliched & trite, which tend to take away from a serious theme, but in the interest of 'masala' viewability, I guess these foibles can be passed over and the movie enjoyed well.
15 minutes - definitely worth a watch, slightly violent though.