88 Minutes Movie Review

Posted by Kevin Carr (kevin@filmschoolrejects.com) on April 18, 2008

I’m not going to deny the fact that Al Pacino is a great actor. However, like fellow great actor Dustin Hoffman, he’s not worth a damn if he’s not directed properly. That’s actually the bane of great actors. Too often, directors are just so thrilled that they don’t work with them on set, and we’re left with a caricature that is more likely to resemble a comedian’s impression.

Pacino’s presence in 88 Minutes reminds me of Diane Keaton’s presence in Mad Money and Because I Said So. Great actor. Bad movie.

88 Minutes takes place in Seattle where a serial rapist and murderer is awaiting execution. Dr. Jack Gramm (Pacino) was critical in convicting the killer. But on the eve of his execution, new murders are happening that are too similar to the original crimes to be coincidence. To make things worse, Gramm starts getting mysterious calls that count down 88 minutes to his own death. He must find the person behind the calls and the killings before the FBI comes down on him first.

There’s a lot of familiar territory covered in this new thriller. Unfortunately, most of that territory falls in the land of bad movies. The overall premise is okay, and it could have made a decent film. However, the writing is so heavy that the plot becomes a jittery mess of unnecessary flashbacks and confusing plot twists. There’s an awful lot of backstory that we are left to figure out on our own rather than be given it during exposition. It tries too hard to be clever and ends up being just plain silly.

Let’s forget the fact that Gramm’s semen seems to be so readily available in Seattle that people can mine it out of everything from toilet seats to dead bodies. I really don’t want to think about Al Pacino’s semen, and I can’t imagine an audience that does. This dovetails into a bigger point in that Pacino’s character is one of the biggest players in the city. There are tons of hot chicks in their 20s and 30s who are currently or have been banging him.

Yuck. Isn’t he like 116 years old or something? His character is so sleazy and weird that it’s really hard to root for him.

To a certain degree, this film feels like it is a movie based on a television show that has a rich backstory with complicated character arcs that we’d only understand if we tuned in each week. Imagine if FOX made a feature film of House but gave the viewers no context of background of the characters’ quirks and backstory.

I like a good thriller, but as a fan of the genre, I’m all-too-aware of the vast playing field of mediocre and downright crummy films it has to offer. So many movies come to mind, including Don Johnson in Guilty as Sin, Madonna in Body of Evidence, Halle Berry in last year’s Perfect Stranger and Diane Lane in this year’s Untraceable.

When the genre is worked properly in films like Se7en and Silence of the Lambs, the results are awesome. When it’s fumbled, it really can be terrible.

And 88 Minutes was fumbled in a big way.

THE UPSIDE: The flexibility of the character of Sara Pollard (Leah Cairns) was very impressive.

THE DOWNSIDE: Al Pacino plays… well, Al Pacino.

ON THE SIDE: All of the ladies in this movie tower over Pacino. In addition to being 116 years old, he is apparently an elf.

Read more articles by Kevin Carr