NPR review of Oleg's movie (with Oleg audio)

[John Bennett]

LA Times movie critic Kenneth Turan reviews the movie 15-Minutes, which opens nationally this weekend. (3:38)

Oleg sounds pretty good.

RealAudio Link

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Info from the official site http://www.15minutesmovie.com



"A native of Siberia, Oleg Taktarov stars as media-hungry killer Oleg Razgul, an immigrant who is seeking the fast road to the American Dream. He will next be seen in John McTiernan's Rollerball.

Born in 1967 in the secret Siberian town of Arzamas-16, Taktarov wanted to be a scientist. By age 12, however, he had distinguished himself in the martial arts of sambo and judo.

He began competing and later joined the Russian Army, where he became a self-defense and counter-terrorist instructor for three years.

By the time he left Russia in late 1994, he was a four-time European and Asian Jiu-jitsu Champion and twice won the World Sambo Championships.

His reputation for enduring pain and beating opponents from many different martial arts styles pushed Taktarov into the elite world of no-rules fighting tournaments.

In the U.S., he quickly came to prominence by winning the grueling Ultimate Fight Championships two years in a row, earning him the nickname "the Russian Bear."

[Bobsolo2U]

And here's another review, compliments of MrCranky.

15 MINUTES

It doesn't take a genius to notice that everyone who appears on Jerry Springer or Ricki Lake is a complete idiot. Springer, Lake, and their ilk are sleazeballs who have built careers on the exploitation of people who would have exoskeletons if they were any dumber. Furthermore, it doesn't take a genius to point out that people who are entertained by the stupidity of others share some culpability for the rise of people like Springer and Lake.

In fact, these issues have been pointed out over and over again, which is why writer/director John Herzfeld's "15 Minutes" isn't nearly as illuminating as he fancies it to be. Hence he tosses in every style, song and method under the sun to make sure that somebody is entertained. For starters, Robert De Niro plays Eddie Flemming, a tough cop, while Edward Burns plays Jordy Warsaw, a fire marshal. So lucky us, the movie is already half cop-buddy film and half "Backdraft."

Two immigrants, Emil Slovak (Karel Roden) and Oleg Razgul (Oleg Taktarov), are at the center of the ruckus. Emil calls in a loan by killing the couple who owes it, while Oleg films the act. Eddie and Jordy start tracking them and eventually Emil and Oleg figure out that taping crime may be worth money, because some stupid news program would probably pay for it. To these tiresome characters, Herzfeld adds some tiresome politicizing and shakes it up with that exciting Blair Witch technique -- entailing lots of jumpy, unintelligible video to break up the main storyline's endless litany of unintelligible pop songs.

Ultimately, the movie is like being kicked in the ass a whole bunch of times by a guy who's yelling the same thing at you over and over again. The first time I find myself in such circumstances, I wonder what it is I've done to piss this guy off. The second time, I turn around and kick this guy in the balls as hard as I can. In the film trade, this is called "lodging a complaint," and for the next couple of months, Herzfeld would be well advised to not venture into public without his protective cup.

[Ryu (non-working password]

LOL
I like that review much better

[Oldskulbus]

I enjoyed the movie tremendously. I wouldn't call it a awesome movie but it was deffinitly worth the $8.50 I paid to see it. Oleg plays a seemingly innocent (and little bitch) of a character and is really funny. I think he did a great job.

[Maui Jim]

Yea Man!
When you see someone from your favorite sport on screen it's similar to seeing the sport and a movie at the same time.
It's just fricking Hollywood entertaining us using our favorite athlete .
Rarely do we see a athletes able to cross over with the same charisma as professional actors to the screen.
We know that from seeing OJ's performance. on or off screen.

[McLeod]

Yeah, the movie was an above everage cop flick, but it was a bit frustrating to see someone who is a good fighter NOT fight. It's like if Frank Shammy was in a rocky film and played the guy who held the spit bucket.
Either way, it was a good film.
I did notice that when Oleg was on the bed in the hotel and Emil jumps on him ( not a fight scene), Oleg kinda brings his legs in and keeps Emil off of him... rectionary perhaps.