88 Minutes Review
by tom elce (dr-pepperite AT hotmail DOT com)November 3rd, 2008
88 Minutes (2007)
2 out of 5 stars
Reviewed by Tom Elce
Directed by Jon Avnet
Cast: Al Pacino, Neal McDonough, Alicia Witt, Leelee Sobieski, Amy Brenneman, William Forsythe, Deborah Kara Unger, Benjamin McKenzie, Leah Cairns
Rated: R (MPAA), 15 (BBFC)
As it meanders towards a conclusion of such inanity it deserved to be relegated to the barren wasteland of straight-to-DVD releases (rather than simply being consecutively pushed back from release), Jon Avnet's 88 Minutes imagines 24 in an even more limited time frame, where sense and narrative flow are, like the Al Pacino's victim to a faceless tormentor giving him only eighty-eight minutes to live, simply lost. By the time the non-too-shocking twist conclusion, which seems to spring direct out of a bad James Patterson novel (as in anything post- Cat and Mouse), its fate as already been pretty much sealed.
Here's an ill-inspired, gimmicky little thriller short on intelligence and even shorter on the would-be requisite thrills of the genre, its screenplay amounting only to a joyless slog through cliches and convention where the featured criminal outside of the present-time race for life Pacino's Dr. Jack Gramm now faces is Neal McDonough's (he of the borderline-iconic I Know Who Killed Me catastrophe) high- camp portrayal of convicted psychopath (or is he?) Jon Forster. His playing part in such a waste of celluloid doesn't come as a surprise, though its disappointing to see someone like Al Pacino relegated to this level of inept filmmaking.
As Gramm races literally against time, his agony feels like a prolonged one to us, not least because the film's running time stretches a good distance beyond eighty-eight minutes. It partly makes up for its grand inanity via a few technically proficient sequences, all of which are nonetheless overshadowed by the film's worst. Or its worst traits in general, as the connection of the number 88 to the death of his sister feels like a gimmick regardless of director Avnet's intention. Again, why is Al Pacino wasting his time here?
Well... Pacino's performance itself isn't anywhere close to his best, simply a disinterested stroll through material he probably had only monetary interest in to begin with. Joining him on the film's iffy cast list are a string of once-promising thespians, like Leelee Sobieski and Alicia Witt, playing stock roles designed only to arouse suspicion. With its few pleasures (so indistinct as they are that they've all pretty much faded from my memory), "88 Minutes" seemed like it might have made a middle-of-the-road if worthless TV production, though its conclusion, borrowing heavily from the pantomime's "he's behind you" formula, proves to be that proverbial nail in the coffin.
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