The Luers Review: 88 Minutes Posted by Erik Luers on 04.26.2008
Makes Cruising look like Citizen Kane..........
With Jon Avnet's 88 Minutes, it would appear as if Michael Corleone has finally been taken down. A thriller in name only, 88 Minutes is so amateurish and dull that you wonder if the filmmakers (if you can even call them that) even bothered trying. With a cast consisting of Al Pacino and a bunch of popular actress circa. 1999, everyone wanders around aimlessly, as if they were trying to find logic in this idiotic, asinine screenplay. By the film's end, they turn up empty. To say this film is a disaster is to say that back in 1912, some ship encountered a minor incident with an iceberg; it's every bit as bad as you've heard. Like shopping on Black Friday morning, this is one awful experience not worth having.
Pacino plays Dr. Jack Gramm, a criminal psychologist who spends most of his time teaching on a Seattle campus. Nine years ago, Jack was the primary influence in getting Jon Forster (Neal McDonough) convicted of murder, accusing him of being that type of pesky serial killer who, if allowed to roam free, would continue to collect more victims. Forster gets sent to prison and today, he is set to be executed. Ironically enough, a murder occurs the night before in exactly the same style as Forster, and the victim just so happens to be one of Gramm's (well, now former) students. Could this mean that Forster is not behind the crimes he was convicted for? Is there just a copycat killer on the loose? Is Gramm secretly behind all of this? Gramm receives a phone call from a psycho, informing him that he only has eighty-eight minutes to live. Uh oh, conflict! Rather than lock himself in his apartment (or look for better scripts), Jack decides to walk into one clue after another. In the school parking garage, Jack's car windows are smashed and he is informed that he now only has seventy-two minutes left. I've got to hand it to the killer, he is very fair. At least he keeps his victims up to date with when they are to expire.
Filled with an abundance of pointless flashbacks that go nowhere (why do we have multiple flashbacks to twenty seconds prior? No new information is dispersed.), the film's narrative is a mess. Gramm is given a cheap backstory involving the death of his younger sister, shown in flashbacks as being obsessed with smiling and flying kites, and he frequently declares that Forster is guilty of his crimes, disposing of thoughts that this may be yet another Cape Fear retread. Each supporting cast member serves as a red herring (look, there's Gramm's teaching assistant flirtatiously taking off her sweater; could she be wooing him to death?) and eventually, the audience realizes that none of this is going to matter much. When a bomb blows up Gramm's parked car, Gramm and his teaching assistant conveniently expect it and hit the ground for safety. What if they had gotten into the car and proceeded to roast away? His eighty-eight minutes wouldn't have been up yet and the killer would be breaking his own set of rules. Where is the logic in this story? In a great monologue late in the film, Pacino (fed up with the plot, I suppose) rants on the idiocy of he being framed for his student's murder. "Did I blow up my own car," he shouts, "did I shoot bullets at myself?" Hmmm, he has a point. He probably wouldn't have concocted a scheme that intricate and malicious. At least, these filmmakers sure as hell wouldn't.
Although Pacino tries his best, even he can't save this poor excuse for a mystery thriller. The final scene, where the conflict is resolved and everyone is brought to justice, is hilarious in its attempt to tie each loose end together, as if it even could. The revelation will have you rolling your eyes in disbelief, which, I guess goes with the structure of the film. It'll take much less than eighty-eight minutes to forget this one, and this is certainly one of Pacino's worst films. Tick tock? Whatever.
The 411: In 88 words or less: this movie is terrible. Pacino can't elevate his fellow actors, the tired script, the hack director, or the pointless editing tricks (Pacino slow dancing to hip hop is tremendous). To view this film is to self-mutilate one's viewing pleasure. Don't say I didn't warn you. Avoid at all costs.
Ive had this movie on my computer through nefarious sources for over a year now
which to me means that this movie has been shelfed for a while. (release date
picked during WGA strike maybe?)
Posted By: ipg (Guest) on April 26, 2008 at 02:58 PM
