Invoking Andy can’t sufficiently prop up this poor excuse for a “serious” movie. Robert DeNiro plays Eddie Fleming, a celebrity cop who uses his fame to get results. He teams up with Ed Burns, as the young and naíve arson inspector Jordy Warsaw, to solve some gruesome, violent murders committed with knives and fire.

Two thugs, one Russian and one Czech, recently arrived on our shores, are responsible for these crimes. Emil, the chain-smoking superpsycho, does the murdering, while Oleg, the big, dumb, easily manipulated psycho, films it all on video. They cook up a scheme to get rich by selling the movie and themselves to the media after they get out of jail on a double jeopardy-insanity-technicality kind of thing.

15 Minutes tries to sell itself as satire, shamelessly strutting, posing and pretending to be a commentary on our fame-obsessed culture, an exploration of the evils of television, an indictment of our legal system and a slap at our lack of personal responsibility,

For a satire of television, rent Network, 25 years old and still much more to the point than this mess. For the rest, it is all so undercooked and overblown, it isn’t really worth dissecting. The script relies on stereotypes and violence, lots and lots of violence, to give cover to its lack of insight about any of the issues it’s hiding behind.

DeNiro is great fun to watch from the first delightful shot of his face being plunged into a bowl of ice to cure his hangover, but he barely lasts half the film. Why DeNiro wanted to do this mush is beyond me. (Did he only read his part? The only fun role is his.)

But, who doesn’t want to work with Bobby? So there is plenty of talent surrounding him. Burns, Kelsey Grammar, Melina Kanakaredes and Kim Cattrall are all trying as hard as they can. 15 Minutes isn’t completely devoid of nice moments, but you have to endure too much of nothing to get to them.

15 Minutes does raise an interesting question: When is it appropriate for a filmmaker to use and exploit sensational subject matter in service of her or his message? If a sensational subject is under the lens as well as in front of it, how much license do artists get?

This question has been gnawing at me since I saw Wayne Wang’s new movie The Center of the World, a film that blurs that line more provocatively than anything I’ve seen in a long time. 15 Minutes never comes close to balancing the seesaw of exploitative versus insightful. It never get above the violence, and so leaves you feeling dirty, degraded and only mildly amused, only barely distracted.

The Center of the World mixes subject and the sensational nature of that subject so provocatively, you leave the theater truly rattled. And because the territory is sex, not violence, the effect is much more interesting.

Far away from Smoke and even farther from The Joy Luck Club, Wang has made a film about sex, money, sex for money, desire and the consequences of dabbling too heavily in all of the above. The Center of the World is remarkably explicit and will be not inappropriately promoted as a Last Tango for today.

A young, dotcom millionaire makes a deal with a stripper to go away with him to Las Vegas for the weekend. They draw up a contract, agree on terms and off they go. The Center of the World takes place over the weekend and is effectively edited beginning with the weekend, and peppered with occasional flashbacks to their relationship before the weekend.

The Center of the World could never get an R rating without, I’m guessing, several cuts. One shot in particular could never get past the MPAA. Luckily, The Center of the World is being released by Artisan Entertainment, a company that has successfully undertaken the risk of releasing an unrated picture. They were able to make a small hit out of Requiem for a Dream, and their task here is much less challenging.

Artisan will release The Center of the World just as it is, in late spring, without cuts, and without any blessing from the MPAA. This film should be seen without cuts, and it should be seen by adults only.

Comparing The Center of the World and 15 Minutes reveals several of the troubles in the rating system. I couldnt recommend 15 Minutes to anyone of any age, but gruesome, explicit murders merits only an R from the all-powerful MPAA. Explicit sexuality will easily earn an NC-17, a rating so prohibitive that the film is more easily released without any rating. The only guidance the public will have for The Center of the World is the admission policies of individual theaters, which just proves something else Andy Warhol said: “That’s what show business is for, to prove that it’s not what you are that counts, it’s what they think you are.”