15 Minutes

Chicago Tribune Mark Caro

The surprise here isn't that 15 Minutes isn't a masterpiece; it's that the movie works at all.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

A cynical, savage satire about violence, the media and depravity. It doesn't have the polish of "Natural Born Killers" or the wit of "Wag the Dog," but it's a real movie, rough edges and all, and not another link from the sausage factory.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

The picture is more impressive as it goes along, revealing a symmetry of construction underneath the rudiments of a thriller.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

Both audacious and unwieldy, exciting and excessive, this dark thriller is too long, too violent and not always convincing. But at the same time, there's no denying that it's onto something, that its savage indictment of the nexus involving media, crime and a voracious public is a cinematic statement difficult to ignore.

Mr. Showbiz Larry Terenzi

Boasts a fine cast and makes enough cogent points that it rises above standard cop fare.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

A first-rate Hollywood entertainment--at least if one can accept the schizophrenia of combining a cop/buddy action thriller with an angry satire about the shamelessness of the media.

Dallas Observer Andy Klein

It's a fast, entertaining ride.

Boston Globe Jay Carr

In a season mostly given over to unwatchable movies being cleared off studio shelves, it's at least about something. And there's no denying the lurid urgency with which it jumps off the screen.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Big, loud and lurid, but no less entertaining for that.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

A fairly hypocritical exercise -- and one that's so flamboyant and overbearing that it comes perilously close to being a classic awful.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

The premise is promising, but Herzfeld cares more about sensationalism than substance, and portions of the picture are far nastier than they had to be.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

Less the blistering satire it imagines itself than a blustering, bloody, blundering melodrama about bottom feeders nibbling each other.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

The Czech Republic and Russia, the respective homes of Emil and Oleg, should sue.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

Less a movie for intelligent moviegoers than a suggestion that we're all brainless chickens.

Variety Todd McCarthy

A thriller more contrived than it is exciting.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

Herzfeld's sophomore movie is one long howl of rage over the relationship between criminals, journalists and thrill-hungry audiences.

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

Too busy trying to make remarks to be much fun in the end. But it really only has one remark, which it reiterates about a thousand times, and it's not all that remarkable: Fame is overrated.

USA Today Mike Clark

Clumsy urban thriller.

New York Post Jonathan Foreman

Works just fine as a generic but fast-paced - and rather ugly - cop buddy flick.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

The unearned air of moralism that wafts through 15 Minutes pollutes its entertainment value.

Village Voice Michael Atkinson

15 Minutes settles into Richard Donner-style goulash.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

Herzfeld also wrote the screenplay, and so its leaden and obvious tone and the resulting dearth of delicacy rests squarely on him.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

It's the poster child for bad taste, not to mention bad construction.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

It takes a concerted effort to make a movie as relentlessly stupid and grating as 15 Minutes.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

Is less an end in itself than an excuse, a jumping off point for showy, contrived, borderline exploitation sequences that fail to tie together because they're not really there to do anything but sell themselves as money shot thrills.

New York Magazine Peter Rainer

John Herzfeld, the writer-director, attacks America's lust for voyeuristic sensationalism by aping the very tactics he decries.

Film.com Ernest Hardy

15 Minutes is simply a bad movie.

The New York Times A.O. Scott

It's fleet- footed, merciless entertainment. But the mixture of laughs, bathos and brutality is a big turnoff.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

They (De Niro, Burns) look good together. But what a staggering pity they chose such a nasty, hackneyed movie to demonstrate their chemistry.

LA Weekly Manohla Dargis

Isn't just rotten -- badly acted, badly written, badly conceived -- it's dead inside.

Slate David Edelstein

It all adds up to one of the most brazen pieces of blame-shifting in exploitation-picture history.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

If Detroit had produced an equivalent lemon, we might have been seeing the world's first one-wheeled, square-tired car with no cooling system, steering wheel or brakes.