15 Minutes

Andy Warhol said that in the future everyone would be famous for 15 minutes, there are some people out there now who have gone far beyond their 15 and should be stopped before they go any further. But this movie takes that adage and pounds it into the ground showing the different sides of fame and how each of the characters deals with it differently. With the examination of today's society and how it acquires its information at whatever cost, we are offered a look at the down side of the journalistic morals.
When two European men come to New York and begin a murderous rampage, that they record, are tracked down by one of New York's finest, who has a thing for the limelight, with the help of a FDNY arson inspector. Edward Burns is the stand out actor in this film, even though it was billed as a Robert DeNiro film, and he does a very convincing job as the arson inspector. Any movie that uses fire as one of the aspects of the story has got its work cut out for it, and here, like so many others, its used in a way that drives the characters to fight to survive within the story. The drama that is laid out keeps the story intriguing to the point that when you reach the end; you almost want to cheer for the good guy.
There were some things in this film that I would have considered at the time to be slightly over the top, but with all the things that we have been exposed to since the making of this movie those same things seem rather tame now. This is a very good movie that has some interesting ideas that should be examined, about the video journalist and their viewing public. Once you watch it you have to wonder what side of the fence do you sit on, and what side would you admit to sitting on.