4. Robert Hawkins - 15 Minutes (2001)
New Line CinemaIt's hard to pinpoint the exact moment in his career when Robert DeNiro stopped caring. While he's occasionally managed to turn in a performance which reminds of how good he used to be (Stardust and Limitless being decent examples), since the mid-1990s his choices have been almost as misjudged as Nicolas Cage's, as have many of his performances. 15 Minutes is another forgettably mediocre entry in his late-period filmography, featuring DeNiro on autopilot and Grammer out of his depth. 15 Minutes stars De Niro as NYPD detective Eddie Flemming, who contributes to a TV show called Top Story hosted by Richard Hawkins (Grammer). Following an apartment fire, Flemming teams up with arson expert Jordy Warsaw (Ed Burns) and uncovers a network of criminals who are fighting over their share of a bank raid. One of the criminals, Oleg, films the murder of his former colleague and everything else he can. When Flemming is captured and murdered by Oleg and his team, Hawkins pays $1m for his 'death tape', whose airing eventually leads to the criminals' capture. Borrowing its title from Andy Warhol's famous quote about fame, 15 Minutes is a heavy-handed, underwhelming thriller. It squanders the opportunity to use its antagonists to make a point about cinematic violence, and its attempts to satirise media hysteria and sensationalist journalism aren't developed properly. Grammer is particularly underwhelming, taking a reasonably meaty and cynical role and delivering his lines with little conviction or interest. As with his work on Fame, it feels like he is rushing himself through his scenes, presumably because he had to get back to filming Frasier.