88 Minutes

You've probably heard from other critics that 88 Minutes is a bad movie. Heard all the negative buzz about how the movie has been sitting on the studio's shelf for well over a year, and has already been released in most foreign markets, often straight to DVD. I'm here to tell you that this is absolutely not true. 88 Minutes is not a bad movie, it is a spectacularly bad movie. It is a convoluted and bombastic thriller that gets under your skin, but not in a good way like a great thriller can. It is cheap and misguided, but most of all, it is an opportunity for lead star Al Pacino to cash a paycheck.

88 Minutes is a pretty simple thriller in theory, so it decides to overcomplicate manners by trying to throw us off course every chance it gets. Watching the film, I was reminded of Perfect Stranger, another recent failed thriller that tried to keep us guessing by making its three lead characters look suspicious whenever the screenplay deemed it necessary. The script for this movie credited to Gary Scott Thompson (The Fast and the Furious) goes one step beyond. It doesn't just make the main characters suspicious, it casts literally everyone who steps into the same frame as Pacino in a suspicious light at one point! Even the guy who runs the front desk at the main character's apartment building can't seem to be trusted. (Check out the shady look he gives as Pacino climbs aboard the elevator. He must know something!) Those who are well-versed in the ways of the hack mystery writer will not have a hard time stripping away the numerous characters and fingering the real culprit, however. All you have to do is look for the character who seemingly doesn't have anything to do with anything that's happened in the movie, and has disappeared for a good part of the story. The fact that this character is played by a somewhat well-known actor makes it all the more suspicious when you figure there's no other reason why he or she would take such a seemingly worthless role.

But, I'm getting ahead of myself. Pacino plays Jack Gramm, a criminal psychiatrist and college professor who nine years ago helped put away a serial killer named Jon Forster (Neal McDonough) after Jon supposedly broke into an apartment, and hung the two women living there upside down from the ceiling, torturing them and killing one of them. Jon was put on Death Row, but there's a lot of people who seem to think he's innocent, as Jack's testimony against Jon is believed by these people to be based on speculation and circumstantial evidence. As Jon's execution date draws near, a series of copycat crimes done in the same style of the murder nine years ago start popping up in an attempt to discredit Jack's testimony. On the same day this happens, Jack starts getting threatening calls on his cell phone by a mysterious voice that sounds kind of like the phone killer from the Scream movies if he was talking through one of those toy microphones that make your voice sound like Darth Vader when you talk into them. The voice unfortunately does not ask Jack what his favorite scary movie is. It instead tells him that he only has 88 minutes left to live.

Why 88 minutes? We eventually learn that this is tied into a painful memory in Jack's past, which we witness in vague flashbacks that feature a sunny little girl running in slow motion while she flies a kite. The sorrowful piano music that plays during these scenes pretty much tells us right off the bat that things don't turn out well for this girl, but it takes a while until we finally learn what happened to her. Despite getting the treatening call, Jack tries to lead a normal life, but that darn killer is everywhere! The killer leaves numerous messages on his phone, then starts leaving behind messages in his classroom, and even on his car when Jack discovers his vehicle has been broken into with the words "76 minutes" scratched into the body of the car. Now, let's stop and think about this for a minute. Jack learns he has 88 minutes left to live while he's walking across the campus to where his class is. He goes to his class, where the killer keeps on interrupting his lecture by calling him. After this, Jack talks to a few people, then walks down to the parking garage, only to find the message left on his car. Ask yourself here, how could the killer have predicted exactly what time Jack would be arriving at his car to know how many minutes would be remaining? Unless the killer took into consideration every possible interruption (What if he dropped something or stopped to tie his shoes?), it's virtually impossible. Of course, we're not supposed to ask that, because we're supposed to be wrapped up in the plot.

But we're not wrapped up, because 88 Minutes boils down to a wild goose chase as Jack races all over the local area trying to find out who is leaving the messages and why. And since we've figured out the identity of the guilty party long before the lead character has, the only thing keeping us in our seats is the scene where we finally get an explanation as to why this seemingly-unimportant character who has gone all-but ignored for the length of the film is doing all of this. The big reveal scene ends up being particularly amusing, as the previously sensible character suddenly goes into forced and unconvincing evil. It eventually turns into a contest between the killer and Pacino to see who can chew the most scenery. Of course, the killer is fighting a losing battle, as Pacino leaves no scene unchewed in his performance here. For a good example, just look at the scene where Jack calls in to a live show where Jon Forster is being interviewed, trying to convince the public of his innocence. Pacino bellows, roars, and hams it up as only he can. The rest of the cast are mainly required to step back and let him do his thing, except when they're supposed to look suspicious at the convenience of a screenplay that thinks it's more clever than it really is.

Famed director Alfred Hitchcock was quoted as saying that he liked to play his audience like a piano. The director of 88 Minutes is Jon Avnet (Fried Green Tomatoes), and he likes to play his audience like a piano, too. Unfortunately, he's not playing music here, he's just banging on the keys incessantly. He tries to keep the tension up with non-stop running, car chases, gunfire, explosions, and shocking murder scenes, but we're left feeling cold, because we don't feel anything. The movie never slows down long enough for us to care about anything going on up on the screen. It just keeps on running and running, but not really getting anywhere, like a hamster in a wheel. I suppose the breathless pace is supposed to put us on the edge of our seats, but because of the distance between the audience and the action up on the screen, it never achieves the emotions it wants.

88 Minutes grows increasingly silly and bombastic with each passing minute, to the point that we're left just waiting for it to end, so that we can go on with our lives. It is a simple thriller built on a shaky screenplay. And just like anything else that's built on a shaky foundation, it eventually collapses in on itself.

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