40 of 48 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Stale and overdone Pacino vehicle, October 11, 2008
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.
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Bad from the starting bell., September 22, 2008
I'd like to pour some deep thought into why this was a bad movie, but nothing about this movie was deep. And I've already wasted 88 minutes watching it and do not want to lose any more time.
Bad acting. Weak story. How the killer sets up all the murder scenes in minutes and then (teleports?) to the next crime is quite difficult to figure out. Did Pacino read the script or just look at the payout on the contract? Are actors like Deniro and Pacino hard up for money. They both seem to be ending their careers on sour notes.
The only remotely interesting part of the movie was watching Pacino's hair. It's teased enough to put most 80 hair bands to shame.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Pacino Goes Through the Motions, June 11, 2010
Made-for-TV dreck masquerading as a theatrical feature. Straitjacketed by Jon Avnet's lethargic direction, the usually formidable Al Pacino punches the time clock as a forensic psychiatrist in this so-called "thriller." Did anyone bother to read the script before shooting the first frame? A waste of your hard-earned 108 minutes.
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