Product Details

• Actors: Al Pacino, Alicia Witt, Ben McKenzie, Leelee Sobieski, Amy Brenneman
• Directors: Jon Avnet
• Writers: Gary Scott Thompson
• Producers: Andreas Thiesmeyer, Avi Lerner, Boaz Davidson, Danny Dimbort, Gary Scott Thompson
• Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English
• Subtitles: English, French
• Region: Region 1 encoding (US and Canada only)
  PLEASE NOTE: Some Region 1 DVDs may contain Regional Coding Enhancement (RCE). Some, but not all, of our international customers have had problems playing these enhanced discs on what are called "region-free" DVD players. For more information on RCE, click here.
• Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Studio: Sony Pictures
• DVD Release Date: September 16, 2008
• Run Time: 108 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (75 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B001C5LLLY
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #7,598 in Movies & TV (See Bestsellers in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
Al Pacino looks startled through much of 88 Minutes, as though taken by surprise at being cast in a thriller that must've first passed across the desks of Clint Eastwood and Harrison Ford. Still, Pacino brings his usual oomph to the role of a Seattle forensic psychiatrist, whose testimony secured the death sentence for a crazy serial killer (Neal McDonough). Wouldn't you know it, the very day the killer is sentenced to die, a copycat "Seattle Slayer" is on the loose, and Pacino starts getting ominous phone calls telling him the exact time of his own death. Tick tock: it's 88 minutes away. The film then serves up more red herrings than a Stalingrad fish fry, as possible culprits pop up every five minutes or so (among them an attractive group of med-school students played by Alicia Witt, Leelee Sobieski, and Benjamin McKenzie). Lapses in logic abound, but if you hunker down and zone in on Pacino's weary-eyed, poufy-haired professionalism, you can enjoy the goings-on. (They even make him run up flights of stairs, which one would have thought beyond him now.) Seattle's frequent stunt double, Vancouver, B.C., stands in as a location, and Jon Avnet supplies the slick direction. The cast is talented (including Amy Brenneman), leading you to guess that a lot of people will do anything just to work with Al Pacino. And you've got to admire Pacino's chutzpah at sharing the screen with statuesque actresses such as Brenneman and Sobieski; they tower over him, but he still holds his own. --Robert Horton

Stills from 88 Minutes (click for larger image)

Product Description
A riveting thriller about a forensic psychologist racing to prevent his own murder. Studio: Sony Pictures Home Ent Release Date: 09/16/2008 Starring: Al Pacino Leelee Sobieski Run time: 107 minutes Rating: R

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Stale and overdone Pacino vehicle, October 11, 2008

By	A. Kazimierczak (Maine, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

88 Minutes is a tried and true "whodunit" shock/thriller clone that may entertain briefly but is at best a guilty pleasure. The story is a Hollywood teaser line: A renown forensic psychologist (Pacino) testifies against a serial killer and then 9 years later on the day of the killer's execution gets a phone call that he has 88 minutes to live.

This may be enough to get Hollywood producers frothing at the mouth and shelling out money, but this is a classic case of a movie that should have stayed a trailer-- the concept fits best into a 30-second package. Watching this movie is like eating a stale doughnut: You see it in the box with all of yesterdays crumbs and think, "That can't be very good, but I want it." You eat it. And then you regret it until the next stale doughnut comes along.

There are 3 main problems to this movie:

1. Pacino plays Pacino: Like Harrison Ford and Clint Eastwood, Al Pacino is getting old (sorry, but it's true). This movie showcases that by juxtaposing him with a class of young co-eds that he supposedly teaches psychology to and having him flirt with them in a decidedly "dirty old man" way. Never in this movie do you think "This is Dr. Gramm, the brilliant and famous forensic psychologist." No, this is Al Pacino stumbling around and yelling into a cell phone every five minutes. As the plot unfolds (more on that later), Pacino combats the killer with cantankerous "hoo-ha!" instead of a psychologist's keen insight. And after the movie nobody even remembers his character's name; it's just Pacino. That might be ok, except that it's an old, grumpy Pacino who refuses to be filmed opposite a female over the age of 25.

2. The Plot: This is an Agatha Christie whodunit with all the investigating stripped out and replaced with shock/gore. It starts with the initial murder which has that sicko-rapist creepiness, and then once it gets going with the "88 minutes" it's just one red herring suspect after another (complete with altered flashbacks and ominous music when you see them).

3. Lack of Characters: There aren't any characters in this movie. Period. There's Pacino playing himself. There are a bunch of vapid co-eds. There's a generic serial killer with no personality (other than he likes to kill/rape people). And that's it. Pacino gets a tragic backstory, but it's the same family trauma crap we see in every crime protagonist. Everyone else is just window dressing: victims, suspects, people for Pacino to say "Hoo-ha!" to on the cell phone (I think at its core this is a cell phone commercial).

In short, unless you really like Pacino and cell phones and wonder how much Hollywood makeup can make him look like a leading man again (similar to the morbid curiosity of watching the last Indiana Jones movie), don't rent or buy this movie.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Lackluster thriller with a wasted cast, September 19, 2008

By	z hayes (plano,texas) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)

"88 Minutes" is definitely not one of Al Pacino's better movies - the thriller suffers from trite dialogue, a wasted cast of well-known names, and poor direction, not to mention an incredulous plot.

The story revolves around forensic psychiatrist Dr Jack Gramm [Al Pacino] whose crucial testimony convicts and condemns a serial murderer, Jon Forster [Neal McDonough] to a death sentence. In the courtroom, as the sentence is handed down, Forster sneers at Gramm and says "Tick Tock..." - apparently the countdown to Gramm's death has begun, and he only has 88 minutes to live/figure out what is going on.

The plot moves along at a rapid pace, but suffers from exaggeration, stereotypes, and mediocre dialogue - Al Pacino's harried psychiatrist seems too sure of himself, and his acting here isn't much to watch, given to over-exaggeration and unnecessary swaggering, running along the crowded streets of Seattle, waving his gun around. His mostly female cast are also wasted - there's the gay admin, played by Amy Brenneman, teaching assistant Alicia Witt, and star student LeeLee Sobieski [in a less than credible role]. Perhaps this movie also suffers from too many characters vying for a significant spot in the storyline.

Ultimately, the movie fails to connect despite the interesting premise and well-known cast - even the close-up shots of victims seems gratuitous and unnecessary. Final verdict - lacklustre thriller. I'd rather re-watch some of Pacino's better thrillers like "Sea of Love" and "Insomnia".

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars 88 Minutes of Unthrilling Thriller, April 26, 2008

By	Tsuyoshi - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

I am a little surprised to see "88 Minutes" theatrically released in America. The film also managed to reach No.4 at the box office chart. After all the film has Al Pacino, perhaps the only reason the film didn't go straight to DVD. But maybe it should have.

"88 Minutes" starts with one unnecessary murder scene and one insipid courtroom scene after that, both of which would tell us what kind of film we are going to see. A "killer" Jon Forster (Neal McDonough) is caught, and in his trial Al Pacino's character forensic psychiatrist and college professor Dr. Jack Gramm gives a testimony, which decides the fate of the accused - death sentence. Unfortunately, nothing is believable, convincing and most importantly thrilling in this terribly directed opening part.

And the film gets worse from there. Cue to nine years later. Jon Forster is going to be executed today, but another murder (with a similar MO and a video tape, too) shocks the authority. Then Jack, who believes it is a copycat case, receives a threatening call telling he has only 88 minutes left to live (accompanied with "tick-tock"). The persistent messages never stop (some of which Jack receives in written form) and Jack starts to take them seriously.

Sadly, none of us would because of the film's utter silliness. I cannot write in detail here, but things get more and more preposterous as the contrived story goes on. I know any thrillers need suspension of disbelief, but mine just ran out when I saw overacting Al Pacino's character running wild holding a gun in the city of Seattle. Also, according to the conclusion, the criminal (or criminals?) are so smart and resourceful like John McClane that almost anything is possible.

You probably know this, but "88 Minutes" employs a unique narrative gimmick similar to the one seen in, say, "Nick of Time"; that is, from the very moment Jack is told that he has only 88 minutes left to live, the film runs exactly the same amount of time - 88 minutes, which feels much longer than it actually is. The concept of real-time "88 minutes" is rather pointless because a good thriller would make us forget its running time. But this does not happen here.

The film's cast includes Alicia Witt, Leelee Sobieski and Deborah Kara Unger. The supports (which also include William Forsythe) are interesting and I know they are all talented, but I'm afraid Jon Avnet's badly-directed film would only make us believe otherwise. I wish that his next film "Righteous Kill" starring Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino would be a better one.