VHS Movie Reviews for 15 Minutes [VHS]

15 Minutes [VHS]

	List Price: $9.98 Our Price: $0.01 You Save: $9.97 (100%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: VHS Video See more movie releases

VHS Movie Reviews of 15 Minutes [VHS]

Movie Review: I don't want my 15 Minutes, after watching this film!!!
Summary: 5 Stars

Of course Robert De Niro is brilliant as always and Ed Burns isn't bad either. The stand out performance has to be with Kelsey Grammer who gives a drastically different performance leaving comedy behind to play a really despicable reporter who does some very unspeakable things in the name of news.

The social commentary is also very interesting bringing to our attention the way the media portrays the villians in our society and the double edged sword of fame. The results in 15 Minutes is a heart pounding ride through twisted circumstances and political correctness gone off the deep end.

I felt close with the characters and deeply disturbed by the certain actions (which I won't give away) by the two psychos against the protagonists. Very unexpected and shocking.

I was entertained from beginning to end and didn't feel a dull moment. I highly recommend this film.

DVD includes a ton of special features and is great in anamorphic widescreen.

Movie Review: I usually love De Niro, but...
Summary: 2 Stars

Movie Review: INTERESTING PREMISE, BUT HOLLYWOOD-ESQE. GREAT SOUNDTRACK.
Summary: 3 Stars

What it has going for it though is a very clever self-referential notion: a film about films, but one that directly indicts its own audience. It also has two excellent bad guys. Plus we have De Niro 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 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 TV folks who are in front of cameras, but who don't know the moves.

The beginning is somewhat gory, the middle picks up a little and sets up an intriguing theme, but then all of this by turns formulaic and unbelievable spin progressively drags things into the mediocre, until the banal ending where our protagonist walks away with his predictable revenge.

The movie is worth a watch though. If nothing else, for the marvellous soundtrack:

God Lives Underwater "Fame"
Maxim "Carmen Queasy"
Breakbeat Era "Ultra Obscene"
Rinocerose "La Guitaristic House"
Moby "Porcelain (Rob D. Remix)"
Prodigy "3 Kilos"
David Holmes "Out Run"
Gus Gus "Gun"
Ballistic Mystic "52 Pick Up"
Johann Langlie "Exedrene"

Movie Review: The Price of Fame
Summary: 3 Stars

Roden and Taktarov are thrill killers who carefully video tape their victims' last gasps, hoping that they can cash in big time by having the tabloids show these tapes. Their rationale is that only crazy people could kill on film, thus guaranteeing a short stay in a mental asylum and riches afterward. Since most killers would not film their killings, either they are truly insane as they claim in public, or as they admit in private, they are pulling a scam on the American system of avoiding responsibility of crime due to a deprived childhood. It is not entirely clear which is the case. In any event, what comes across is a morally blighted America that seems a cross between NATURAL BORN KILLERS and TAXI DRIVER.

DeNiro is a homicide detective who has no trouble playing a role that he has often done, that of the wordly-wise policeman who has seen too often up close the incestuous relationship between crime and the media coverage of crime. He plays it straight, a note that stands out as jarringly different from everyone else who acts either bizzarely or out of character. DeNiro's partner is a fire marshall (Burns), who inexplicably tags along on a homicide investigation, and promptly shows why he is a fire marshall rather than a cop. Burns makes mistake after mistake, including a whopper at the end that surely should result in his own arrest for the mistreatment of a suspect in custody. The real stars are the Russian killers, who somehow manage to escape capture so often that their real names might have been Richard Kimble and the One-Armed Man. Roden and Taktarov are beasts, but their bestiality merely highlights their maniacal drive to manipulate a television media that has less journalistic integrity than Jerry Springer. They kill, they laugh, and generally whoop it up on camera, with Taktarov seeing himself as a perverted Frank Capra capturing the essence of an America that is probably closer to his own warped vision than we might like to admit. Except for DeNiro, everyone else in this film had their own 15 minutes of fame. Whether 15 MINUTES continues to resonate with future audiences will likely depend on whether we see ourselves as taking responsibility for our own actions, as Frank Capra clearly sought in his imaginative comedies, or whether Americans continue to flock to the tabloids to further expose the putresence that passes for tabloid journalism. 15 MINUTES forces the viewer to make that choice now.

Movie Review: This writer/director is an unsung genius
Summary: 5 Stars

The filmmaker forcefully illustrates the ambivalent feelings the American public has about violence, media, and fame. We sit in front of the television and turn criminals into celebrities, we are fascinated by the most sordid details of crime, and we watch, enthralled, as murder is served up as entertainment. It's the train wreck mentality: we're horrified and repulsed; yet we can't look away. A lot of people have been confused and angered by this collective consciousness and I've noticed in the past ten years many filmmakers, writers, artists--myself included--have tried to mesh all of these themes in various stories, plays and movies. But John Herzfeld manages to get it right. He gets the message across while putting together a compelling plot, without being contrived or preachy. This extraordinary film forces (we) viewers to take a good hard look at ourselves and face the things hidden in our nature--qualities that we don't want to see. But it stays entertaining. It builds and builds. Herzfeld skillfully weaves plots that display our obsessive fascination with violence, sex, and degradation in the media and he accurately conveys our intricate, complicated feelings of hating it while at the same time being inexplicably drawn to it.

I was so happy to be amazed by Robert DeNiro again. After seeing him in a string of lame comedies, it was exciting to see him give a complex performance as a tough, smart, cocksure, but ultimately likable hero. We like our brilliant actors to be brilliant.

This is heavy stuff and I feel that the reason so many people have been fiercely negative about this movie is because they don't want to confront their own dark feelings or admit the collapse of morality in the USA which has made our tolerance for horrible behavior way too high. But what do we do about it? There are no answers, but this movie explores the mindset.

The negative reviews I read also rather obviously demonstrates a portion of the American public's outright refusal to admit that evil exists--and that there are some people (many in this day in age) who are so inherently evil that they become expert in their ability to exploit the humanity in other's in order to get away with the most unspeakable acts. Many people prefer to believe the outdated "abuse excuse" a defense this movie satirizes.

Other reasons I've read in the negative reviews for disliking this movie claim that the story is improbable and even unbelievable. I wish these people would tell me how to arrive at the Utopia they are living in. In a society where, at any given moment, we can turn on the news and see stories about teenage girls giving birth in a bathroom stall, murdering the child and then, minutes later dancing at her prom, where guilty celebrity-killers walk free, and where brutal murderers get marriage proposals in their prison cell (or market their artwork online, or start a ministry) I don't see what's so difficult to believe in this movie`s storyline. Gruesome things happen every day, jostling for attention, and we watch, while the corpses are paraded in front of a popcorn-munching public.

One final thing: the last 15 minutes of "15 Minutes" had my heart racing and my blood boiling.