Media can be ruthless!! It can be sympathetic and then it can be mocking and then worst of all it can lie through the black and whiter collage and then it goes on to actually manufacture thoughts in the peoples mind and then the influences begin to take shape!!
See it’s a mental thing. It has nothing to do with emotion; all it does is play cleverly at first, build an image and then “BAM”. The world just collapses!!
In 15 minutes, the premise is FAME and how to get it or even take pot shots at snatching it but the bigger idea is the people who understand this and play it. The players in this game are the darlings of people, darlings of the media but ruthless, inhuman corpses who give a damn about the other fellow colleague’s life or otherwise.
Picture this:
Two foreigners land in the US, in the customs this guy from Russia just sums it for us; “This is the land of promise, the land of the brave and the land where anyone can be anything that they want!”
This is heinous thinking. It’s got the smell of a true rag picker, the devious mind and worst of all an opportunity seeker and grabber!!
Imagine then that these two foreigners get through the customs formalities and also get the visa to enter New York… Whats the next best thing they do?? Well, it’s all about money honey…
They track down their fellow colleague and actually brutally murder him and then his girlfriend and then there is an eye witness to the crime scene!! Also, mind you the guy with dreams in his eyes has also got a video camera stuck in his hands and is filming this brutal murder and the aching repentance of the friend saying I killed him, my best friend!! And then, there are these tales on the numerous talk shows that keep influencing these two foreigners…
Enter the media darling, Eddie, Robert De Niro, famed detective for whom the media is always present and he is flashed on the new channels across NY. Eddie always delivers.
Eddie is the investigative officer on the murder of a couple who were actually brutally murdered but the crime scene involved fire!! The hell that our foreigners had created is so grotesque that you need a strong heart to kill your emotion and let your mind help you in gaining the calm necessary. Enter Detective Jordy Warsaw, Edward Burns, with the Fire Department of NY. Investigates these scenes by actually checking burnt bodies and first naked eye search!! Eddie and Jordy meet at the scene and then one thing leads to another where Eddie finally walks out with a confirmation of the fact that the couple was definitely murdered. The Fire Chief is candidly shown asking Jordy that if he was the one who confirmed the murder evidence, why is Eddie talking to the media and not him!! There that sums up the premise for this amazing film!!
Meanwhile, the talk shows are building up storm in the minds of Emil and Oleg. Oleg is our man with Hollywood dreams and the video camera and Emil is our Czech friend who is out on a mission to recover his money.
Emil, has been watching the talk shows and is secretly preparing his defense if caught in his meaningless acts of brutality, INSANITY PLEA!! Again the attention that the media would give him would the required FAME and he would then be the underdog who media would rave about. That’s the plan for his 15 minutes of fame!
I could actually go on from here to explain the series of murders that take place and how Eddie and Jordy have a go at the murderer and how the media follows them. But I would suggest you to go see this film!!
John Herzfield directed 15 minutes is cynical, savage film that takes you through the mindsets of people who do not think or even pre meditate a killing and people who have the minds and their hearts set right to actually think like the murderers and then take their steps to hasten the laws upkeep.
It is a brutal world. It is very savage when you see your own kin being flung as ragged dolls, hunted and then thrown to the mindless glare of the media and the law. The people who commit are so essential for the people who bring them to justice!!
Is that really justice?? Why in the first place does man have the thought of killing? Why does he have the thought of ending someones life… Where does this act lead to eventually??
Two directions: Law brings them back to the bench and maybe award the Gas Chamber or the Hangman’s rope or worst still, play into the hands of the media, insanity plea and then the media will make you the underdog and even people will sympathise and support.
What does this prove? That the human mind is capable of conniving, constructing destruction to degrees of brutality and at the same time has the capacity to backtrack, read the mind of the conniver, become a conniver and get the culprit to justice.
Is this really the way the world goes round??
OR
Is Media the villain that makes people think the way they do? In 1932 we had the madness of Daniel in There will be Blood, then there is the Untraceable who use the internet to forward their grotesque thinking….. its really the mind. It gets you and then the protector gets you!!
The film is all about the savagery and a cynical look at the huge sinister ways of the media. This is a film that will make you think. This is a film that will tell you the equation of FAME = GLORY. What cost???
I for one have been very moved by the fact that there are people and will be who will exploit the available and make mockery of the system but for how long?? There is action in this film, plenty of it but most of all what it talks about is the mindset of people who have the brevity to think dead and then KILL. It has the savagery of the killer and the determination of the hunter to nab the killer and get his 15 minutes of FAME!
The underline is 15 minutes!!!
It’s happening here too. Grandstand, the final standing ovation? Who gets it?
Go watch it.