Though Al Pacino is best known for his roles in classic films such as The Godfather and Scarface, the 67-year-old actor has also had his fair share of misfires. Whether it was the underwhelming People I Know or even one of the most despised movies of all time, Gigli, there are certainly a few spots on Pacino’s resume he wouldn’t mind forgetting.
Greetings, 88 Minutes – welcome to the club.
Helmed by Jon Avnet, directing his first feature film since 1997’s Red Corner, 88 Minutes seems compelling enough in theory. After all, with one of Hollywood’s biggest stars headlining a mystery thriller with a unique premise, all the pieces of the puzzle are there. Unfortunately, writer Gary Scott Thompson’s (The Fast and the Furious) incoherent screenplay is a narrative mess plagued by a rambling plot and terrible dialogue.
88 Minutes opens with a half-naked girl blaring the Backstreet Boys in her apartment while a sadistic rapist and murderer sneaks up on her. This scene is a fitting representation of what the audience will be seeing for the next hour-and-a-half: something that could potentially be captivating ruined by some inexplicable filmmaking choices.
Pacino plays Dr. Jack Gramm, a college professor in Seattle who also works as a forensic psychiatrist for the FBI. When his testimony puts the renowned “Seattle Slayer,” Jon Forster (Neal McDonough, I Know Who Killed Me), on death row despite a lack of any physical evidence (just one of many ridiculous story elements), the serial killer pledges to have his revenge. Nine years later, with Forster’s verdict in doubt as murders of his patented style reappear, Gramm receives a mysterious phone call threatening that he only has 88 minutes to live.
Knowing that Forster must have someone on the outside serving as his puppet, Gramm decides to use all the investigative skill he has to narrow down the suspects and find the person with a vendetta against him. With the help of his teaching assistant (Alicia Witt, Last Holiday) and secretary (Amy Brenneman, The Jane Austen Book Club), Gramm begins to unravel a mystery that turns out to be about much more than saving himself.
What holds 88 Minutes back is the simple absurdity of its plot. The storyline becomes unnecessarily muddled when several subplots are briefly introduced, only to be unceremoniously dismissed. Also, as Gramm peels back the layers of the case, the coincidence with which the events fall into place is laughably convenient.
In fact, there are many moments throughout the film so baffling, they completely take the audience out of the movie. As Gramm starts his day, he wakes up to see his one-night stand brushing her teeth naked while stretching her foot over her head. Later, when it is revealed Gramm was out at the bar the night before, drinking and partying with his students, no one finds this the least bit unusual. And with only hours before his scheduled execution, Forster is interviewed live on national television in a move no real network would ever actually make.
As the film goes on, the plot holes become more and more noticeable while the twists come across as more illogical than shocking. It seems Thompson knew where his film was going to end but had no idea how to get from point A to point B.
Hopes of Pacino saving the dismal film are shot down when it becomes clear fairly early that he merely phoned his performance in. This might leave his fans even more ready for the September release of his long-awaited collaboration with Robert De Niro, Righteous Kill, but seeing as Avnet is also at the helm, it probably isn’t the best idea to get one’s hopes up.
tfloyd1@umd.edu
RATING: 1 STAR OUT OF 5
