The Last Minute

Talk about your 15 minutes of fame: On screen, the rise and fall of ”next big thing” Billy Byrne (Beesley) literally doesn’t last much more than a quarter hour. After that, it’s all downhill for this film, which finds once-promising ”artist” Billy landing on the London streets, becoming a petty crook, and fighting in a ridiculously over-the-top battle between pickpockets and gangsters — one of whom wields a sledgehammer and lip-synchs to Percy Sledge’s ”When a Man Loves a Woman.” Borrowing from both Stanley Kubrick and Danny Boyle, writer-director Stephen Norrington (Blade, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen) throws in lots of trippy editing stunts, which only obscure what little his film has to say. EXTRAS Some four hours of special-feature overkill include five mini-docs, among them one that discusses the film’s ”autobiographical” nature — and illuminates nothing.