88 Minutes -(2007) Forensic psychiatrist Jack Gramm (Al Pacino) suddenly receives a call telling him he has 88 minutes left to live. In his fight to find out who is out to kill him he will confront issues stemming from a serial murder case and his personal life. The solution must be found, in 88 minutes.
Never has so much potential been so utterly squandered. This is a solid cast working a great concept. Yet somehow director Jon Avnet manages to turn out a rather dull and plodding movie. From the moment Gramm gets the call there are in fact just 88 minutes left (well maybe a minute or so more) in the movie itself. It takes place in REAL time yet there’s never any edge of the seat excitement. I kept WANTING to be excited about the movie but it just never took me up on the offer.
Pacino’s character is another one of these people who simply plows ahead without ever taking a moment to think something out. The script simply doesn’t try for nuance. You end up with an FBI consultant who treats a senior agent like his personal assistant and who, at one point, tells his actual assistant to make a phone call then promptly leaves the building without telling her where he’s going. At the end you discover that if he’d just read the papers he asked for when he got them (a task that takes a grand total of two minutes as we watch) he could have solved the case 20 minutes earlier. Now maybe they were trying to play to this arrogance but you need to take a minute and develop the concept. Never happens. Leelee Sobieski plays a pivotal role in this as well yet her character gets no development at all. There are things that would seem to be obvious pieces of information for Gramm to have that somehow he just never notices.
So many could have beens. So little to show for it. If you have an afternoon with nothing better to do than watch a movie “that coulda been a contender” (to borrow from a much better film) then go ahead. Otherwise spend those minutes doing something else.
Rating – ** Not Impressed
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