2008 Woodie Awards
'88 Minutes' of film or torture?
Gil Riego Jr.
Published: 4/22/08 at 9:00 PM PST Section: Reviews
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"88 Minutes" plays off the theme of real-time filming. It's often very hard to do, and rarely done well.
Al Pacino plays a forensic psychologist by the name of Jack Gramm, who has given psychological evaluations to high-profile serial murderers like Ted Bundy.
He is now an expert witness giving his views of Jon Forster (Neal McDonough), the accused "Seattle Slayer," who tortures
his female victims by hanging them by the left leg, slicing a vertical laceration down the entire left side of their bodies, and bleeding them out.
After the conviction of Forster, he looks back at Gramm with a claim of revenge and a whispered, "Tick, tock, tick, tock."
Nine years later, the death sentence of Forster approaches, and Gramm celebrates his conviction.
However, there seems to be a copycat pulling off the same murders that Forster was convicted of nine years prior, bringing doubt to the testimony of the expert witness.
After hearing this, Gramm goes to his class to teach his lecture on forensic psychology, when he gets a phone call of a screaming woman.
A man speaks with a distorted voice, saying that Gramm has 88 minutes to live. "Tick tock, doc," says the voice.
The rest of the film is filled with a paranoid Gramm trying to figure out who could possibly be out to kill him, while the main suspect is behind bars.
Who does he trust?
Who does he fear?
It sounds like an excellent movie on paper, but the lackluster acting from the majority of the cast is what brings this movie down.
The problem with this film is that you spend most of the time staring at your cell phone, looking to see if the time is actually taking the real time spans.
Alicia Witt, who plays the teaching assistant of Gramm, doesn't play a convincing role of the background that her character was given.
Leelee Sobieski's performance was lackluster, as her monotonous voice didn't convey any emotion or feeling.
Pacino. It was Al Pacino; excellent as always. But his talents could not save this film.
The plot of "88 Minutes" was amazing and has great potential; unfortunately the execution of the film falls short from decent.
With much better films out there, watching this is something that could wait until it comes out on DVD.
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