• the217
• Movies + TV
• Emotive Pacino can’t save ridiculous plot!

Related Media

88 Minutes

Buzz says:   MPAA Rating: R
Current Showtimes: No showtimes available

Al Pacino is one of movies' most explosively emotive actors. While many of his more memorable roles can be directly connected with now trademark emotional outbursts, like Sonny Wortzik’s “Attica!, Attica!” chant in Dog Day Afternoon, lawyer Arthur Kirkland’s “You’re Out’ta Order!, You’re Out’ta Order!” tirade in the climactic court scene in And Justice For All, to the blind Col. Slade’s punctuated “Hoo--ah!”s in Scent of a Woman, however, in Jon Avnet’s newest thriller 88 Minutes, Pacino literally phones in much of his ranting while on a cell phone.

Seattle forensics psychology professor Jack Gramm (Pacino) is a dubious character and a smart academic, but also a womanizer and media savvy manipulator. He has been an expert witness to numerous murder cases, and as this film’s story begins, it’s the eve of the execution of a brutal murderer he helped convict a decade before. The killer, Jon Forster, always claimed his innocence, while accusing Gramm of providing false evidence. So Avnet and screenwriter Gary Scott Thompson set up a simple revenge plot. They complicate matters when a series of similar killings begin and Gramm receives a phone call from a distorted vengeful voice stating he has 88 minutes to live.

Copying the gimmicky real-time narrative style of Fox’s 24, Gramm frantically spends the next hour and a half dodging bullets, being chased by a dark helmeted motorcyclist, surviving a car explosion, and breathlessly talking on cell phones to a dedicated assistant (Amy Brenneman) and a special agent (William Forsythe). Thompson’s convoluted script casts a suspicious eye on nearly every character (mostly very attractive women) Gramm comes in contact with as he miraculously eludes his potential killers. Unbelievably this all happens to a character played by a resilient 68 year old actor.

Despite such plot contrivances and fantastic twists Pacino’s performance keeps the movie engaging and entertaining—as long as you don’t think too much about how you’re being manipulated as a viewer.