15 Minutes | |
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Theatrical release poster
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Directed by | John Herzfeld |
Produced by |
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Written by | John Herzfeld |
Starring | |
Music by | |
Cinematography | Jean-Yves Escoffier |
Edited by | Steven Cohen |
Production
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Distributed by | New Line Cinema |
Release date
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Running time
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120 minutes |
Country |
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Language | English |
Budget | $42 million |
Box office | $56.3 million |
15 Minutes is a 2001 German-American crime thriller film starring Robert De Niro and Edward Burns. Its story revolves around a homicide detective (De Niro) and a fire marshal (Burns) who team up to stop a pair of Eastern European murderers (Karel Roden and Oleg Taktarov) who are videotaping their crimes in order to become rich and famous. The title is a reference to the Andy Warhol quotation, "In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes."
The film begins with Emil Slovak (Karel Roden) and Oleg Razgul (Oleg Taktarov) arriving in America. They were former criminals and, after getting out of prison, have come to the U.S. to claim their part of a bank heist in Russia (or somewhere in Czech Republic). Within minutes of arriving, Oleg steals a video camera from a Make-Your-Own-Movie establishment. They go to the run-down apartment of their old partner and demand their share. He doesn't have it so Emil stabs him and his wife to death as Oleg tapes it with the camera. The couple's friend, Czech immigrant Daphne Handlova (Vera Farmiga), witnesses the murders from the bathroom; but she escapes before they can kill her, too. To hide the crime, Emil burns down the apartment.
Jordy Warsaw (Edward Burns) is an arson investigator and is called to the case. Eddie Flemming (Robert De Niro) is a much celebrated detective who is also called to the scene. Flemming is such a high-profile celebrity detective that he is even followed around by the local tabloid TV show Top Story. Everywhere he goes, the townspeople cheer him on. Flemming and Warsaw decide to help each other out and work the case together. While checking out the crowd outside, Warsaw spots Daphne trying to get his attention. When he finally gets to where she was, she's gone.