’15 Minutes’ not worth the time Contrived film tries too hard to be satire of tabloid culture in U.S.

In theaters

“15 Minutes.” Written and directed by John Herzfeld. 120 minutes. Rated R.

Emil (Karel Roden) and Oleg (Oleg Taktarov), the two Eastern European stereotypes in the new John Herzfeld movie “15 Minutes,” are having one hell of a time in Manhattan.

After arriving in the city, Oleg, the dumber of the two with the pushed-in face and the blank, blue stare, steals a video camera and announces to Emil that he wants to become the next Frank Capra.

Ignoring this, the jittery, ratlike Emil, who sweats almost as much as he smokes, drops in on some friends who owe him money. Furious that they don’t have it, Emil grabs a kitchen knife and slaughters them while Oleg the opportunist, recognizing a potentially great moment for cinema verite, surreptitiously films the ensuing bloodbath – and the fire Emil sets to cover up the murder.

Now on the run from the celebrity cop (Robert De Niro) and the young arson investigator (Edward Burns) assigned to the case, the men become immersed in American culture by way of the sleazy, tabloid talk shows they watch in their flop house.

Indeed, it’s through these talk shows that Emil has his epiphany. “In America,” he says, “nobody is responsible for what they do. I can go crazy and kill – and still walk away free and become rich on movie deal.”

Working from his own script, Herzfeld turns that theory into a movie that tries too hard to put a spin on Andy Warhol’s comment that everyone will be famous for 15 minutes.

The film constantly feels at odds with itself. It’s a tabloid look at our tabloid culture that’s supposed to be a satire about celebrity and the media, but since Herzfeld (“2 Days in the Valley”) doesn’t have the edge, the wit or the intelligence to pull any of it off, his movie becomes a cliched police romp that favors action over irony.

It’s a shame, especially since there are a handful of nicely conceived surprises sandwiched in the dirge. Kelsey Grammer is effective as a trash journalist who buys Emil and Oleg’s tape, and Melina Kanakaredes gives the film’s best performance as a TV journalist on the brink of success. Still, undermining it all are the film’s overt contrivances, which are too much to bear.

“15 Minutes” is a film in love with the idea of reality, but by the time it offers its over-the-top ending, it has offered no reality of its own.

Grade: D+

On Video and DVD

“Almost Famous.” Written and directed by Cameron Crowe. 124 minutes. Rated R.

Cameron Crowe’s “Almost Famous” is about a 15-year-old boy coming of age in a world of rock stars, rock groupies, mind-bending drugs, sex, single motherhood and – underscoring it all with an exclamation point – the early 1970s.

At its core, it’s about the loss of innocence, certainly the loss of adolescence, but it wisely doesn’t trivialize the boy’s push into adulthood nor does it assume that adulthood comes at any great emotional cost.

The film is, in fact, in love with the idea of becoming an adult, which is no surprise when one considers it’s based in large part on Crowe’s own experience as a reporter for Rolling Stone in 1973.

As Crowe tells it, everyone’s journey into adulthood should be this glamorous, this exciting, this harrowing, this sweet.

And he’s probably right. His film follows his alter-ego, William Miller (Patrick Fugit), a bright, yet woefully naive young man from San Diego who’s warned time and again by his eccentric mother, Elaine (Frances McDormand), not to listen to rock music.

But when William’s sister Anita (Zooey Deschanel) leaves him her stash of rock albums, she unwittingly inspires William to devote his life to rock music as a critic – one on par with the man who will eventually become his mentor, the legendary rock critic Lester Bangs (Philip Seymour Hoffman).

Unabashedly nostalgic but rarely sentimentalized, William’s journey into the seductive world of rock begins with a staunch warning from Lester: “A critic has to make a reputation on being honest and unmerciful. Don’t make friends with the rock stars.”

Smart advice, but William can’t adhere to it. As he connects with the rock group Stillwater, a band he follows around the country after scoring a writing gig with Rolling Stone, he comes to intimately know the players, especially the lead guitarist, Russell Hammond (Billy Crudup), and his girlfriend, Penny Lane (Kate Hudson), both of whom forever change William’s life – but in wildly different ways.

Marked by its strong script and outstanding performances, particularly from Fugit, the Academy Award-nominated McDormand and Hudson, “Almost Famous” is funny and honest, moving and memorable – a character-driven film about growing up in the 1970s that never once gives itself over to cheap cynicism.

Grade: A

Christopher Smith is the Bangor Daily News film critic. His reviews appear Mondays in Style, Thursdays in the scene, Tuesdays on “NEWS CENTER at 5” and Thursdays on “NEWS CENTER at 5:30” on WLBZ-2 and WCSH-6.