Movie Review: 88 Minutes

So watching 88 Minutes is akin to placing a steaming turd in the middle of the kitchen and letting the smell slowly seep into everything important to you.

Watching this movie is like seeing 24 by way of the Scream series. This is nothing more than Al Pacino showing us his take on Jack Bauer.

Starring the aforementioned Al Pacino and a vertiable who's who of B-list talent including Leelee Sobieski, Amy Brenneman, Neal McDonough, the angry kid from the OC and the criminally underused William Foresythe this film doesn't have the slightest idea about what it really wants to be.

88 minutes practically begs to be released straight to video. Instead the poor thing is forced to shuck and jive in the big leagues and, as a result, it comes off looking tacky and cheap. The plot is stale, essentially a who-dunnit serial killer retread (why is it always serial killers these days, don't people just kill one-offs anymore?) Al Pacino, as psychiatrist Dr. Jack Gramm, has 88 minutes to find out who is copying the murders of a serial killer he helped put in jail before the unseen killer comes after him.

The film is reduced to relying on this hackneyed plot device, in order to add a sense of drama and urgency to the story. However, it fails even to accomplish that base urgency satisfactorily. While visually trying it's best to be slick and edgey the film trips itself up and insists on dropping minding numbingly dull expository scenes into the action, presumably to heigthen the tension by giving all the ensemble characters slightly suspicious backgrounds.

In reality all this character building is patently absurd. The film is full of red herrings, and very quickly any actual plot becomes irrelevant. We're left with a not-so-amusing shell game of trying to seperate the valid information from the useless chaff chucked in to make the story seem more complicated than it really is. After about twenty minutes the only reason you're still watching is because you're waiting to see which one of the 'name' actors is going to turn out to be the baddie.

Al Pacino is one of the great acting talents of our time. But in this role he seems more like Morgan Freeman, performing in films that require a physiciality from him that he can no longer deliver on. You can practically see him falling over from exhaustion as he runs, because this is a thriller goddammit, from one contrived set piece to the next. As if making up for his lack of vitiality he has decided to surround himself with pretty, youthful, sexy actors, most of which you'd recognize, even if you're not quite sure from where.

If you're looking for a real, as it happens type story, I'd recommend just going out and watching 24. For lesser known, and liked, examples there is always Nick of Time, Phone Booth and Rope.

Don't waste your time on this film. Let's all remember Al Pacino as a great actor who usually does great parts. Not as someone who fills up his off time by taking any script that is slipped to him under the doors of a bathroom stall.