Al Pacino and Benjamin McKenzie in 88 Minutes(2008).
© Sony Pictures
Movie: 88 Minutes
Reviewed Format: Theatrical Release
Starring: Al Pacino, Alicia Witt, Leelee Sobieski, Neil McDonough
Written By: Gary Scott Thompson
Directed By: Jon Avnet
Distributor: TriStar Pictures
88 Minutes
By: Rachel ReitsleffDate: Friday, April 18, 2008
There are moments in 88 Minutes where it seems possible that none of its creative engineers fully thought it through on either the macro or micro level. For a movie with a protagonist, Al Pacino’s Dr. Jack Gramm, who is a forensic psychiatrist, the plot is oddly general on the motives of the villain. On a smaller scale, it’s tough to suppress the urge to supply a response when one of Gramm’s prize students wonders what kind of person would commit the crimes that occur in the film, as presumably this is what Gramm is teaching in his university classes.
In a prologue sequence, we see a grisly murder carried out, but the killer is prevented from committing a second killing on the site by his next intended victim. Gramm’s testimony helps convict putative serial killer Jon Forster (Neil McDonough), who spends the next nine years on death row in Washington State, proclaiming his innocence. Besides consulting in the criminal justice system, Gramm teaches at a Seattle University. He’s understandably dismayed when one of his female students is murdered in exactly the manner reputedly favored by the locked-up Forster, and further jolted when he begins receiving anonymous phone calls telling him he has 88 minutes to live. Sure that the new murder is the work of a copycat looking to win Forster a stay of execution, Gramm races around town, trying to track down the culprit and save his own life.
Director Jon Avnet has undeniable visual pizzazz and lets things roll along in lively fashion, and writer Gary Scott Thompson provides not only a plethora of suspects but a reasonable significance to the title allotment of time (though it should be noted that 88 Minutes in fact runs 108 minutes). Anyone who enjoys seeing Pacino in full bluster will get a kick out of his performance here, and McDonough does a fine job of treading the line of possible menace/plausible aggrieved innocence. Thompson certainly tries to give Gramm some personal grace notes, but because they aren’t built up to properly, they sometimes come off as jarring rather than affecting. Furthermore, Gramm seems to have the ability to cover ground at a speed even 24 would find unlikely, able to go from here to there and back again in bare minutes of screen time. Dialogue is sometimes unintentionally funny and the filmmakers either lack a sense of drama or are unaware that they give away a massive plot point long before the characters figure it out.
For viewers who can appreciate silliness, 88 Minutes has a lot of slick energy. It just applies that energy to material that sometimes plays as more absurd than gripping.
