WEB EXCLUSIVE
1 out of 4 stars
Posted on April 21, 2008
There are a few actors out there that have a certain drawing power to them. Whether the movie is a total flop or an Academy Award winner, people will still go see it because of such actors. Al Pacino has risen to that level and stayed there for quite some time. Sometimes he performs in instant classics, but other times the movie is just short of unwatchable. Which category does “88 Minutes” fall into? It’s safe to say that it isn’t worth your 88 minutes of viewing time, but because of Pacino, people will still show up at the box office.
Nine years after forensic psychiatrist and college professor Jack Gramm (Pacino) helped to put the serial murderer,“The Seattle Slasher,” behind bars, the killings start up again. With the murders exactly the same in every detail, speculations of whether they got the real killer begin to arise. With Jon Forster (Neal McDonough), the seattle slasher, slated to be executed at the same time the murders start again, he gets a lot of publicity and sympathy, which then leads to him getting another trial. Meanwhile Prof. Gramm is being stalked and his life is being threatened by whom he thinks is working for the real killer, Forster. He is given 88 minutes to live or to find out the killer and stop him.
This movie suffers from several major problems. One problem is Pacino. It’s almost like he knows the movie is bad while filming it, because in every scene he seems like he just doesn’t care or he just woke up and was dragged to the set. His hairstyle is so bad-looking you can’t help but focus on it instead the story. The plot is the second problem with the movie. It’s very unoriginal and quite dull. We’ve seen psycho-killer movies before, we’ve seen cell phone stalker movies before; and we’ve seen Al Pacino movies before…and we’ve seen them done better than “88 Minutes.”
Editing also plays a role in determining the quality of this movie. Usually it’s hard to catch bad editing mistakes, but they are plain as day within this “thriller.” Because of the story, Pacino is on the phone most of the time, which gets old real fast. You don’t even need to pay full attention to notice that the phone he is talking on switches ears back and forth within one conversation. It was so noticeable that people were actually laughing out loud in the theater.
The last and most annoying problem with this film is the way it is directed. Characters seem to pop up and leave for great lengths of time. Everyone appears to be suspected for being the murderer at one point in time during the movie. Characters change and you can’t tell if anyone is telling the truth or not. When you do finally get to see who the killer is, you don’t see it coming, but you don’t care either. It doesn’t make sense, it isn’t exciting, and by that time you’re already thinking about what you’re going to do after the movie. If you can’t get a reaction from the audience at the climax of the movie, that’s when you realize your time has been wasted.
