By Blake Penfield, Contributing Writer
You know the last apple in the carton at the store? It’s all gross and bruised. That’s about the horticultural equivalent of the movie “88 Minutes,” which was actually filmed and finished in 2005. Israel and a few other countries actually got DVD releases of the film before TriStar decided to pick up the rights for U.S. distribution. And now TriStar has graciously released the film into American theatres to teach us all a valuable lesson: Why Wal-Mart throws the last apples in the carton away.
Al Pacino plays renowned forensic psychiatrist and college professor Dr. Jack Gramm. Within minutes of meeting Gramm, the audience becomes very aware of two things: the man has more money and gadgets than Batman, and every woman on earth is in love with him. All of them. Gramm has recently given an extremely persuasive professional testimony to put Jon Forster (Neal McDonough), a man he believes to be a serial killer, on death row. However, Forster has tirelessly implored his innocence and has developed quite a following of fans who advocate for his release from prison.
In the film’s opening scenes, Gramm receives a mysterious phone call informing him that he has 88 minutes left to live. Over the course of the following 88 minutes, Gramm stumbles onto absurd clue after absurd clue and ridiculous twist after ridiculous twist until he finds himself ineptly manipulated into the film’s insipid climax.
I didn’t much care for this movie. I’m not sure where to begin, but alphabetically was good enough for our forefathers, so I guess it’s good enough for me. The acting in this movie was
not excellent. Well, Pacino was good. He kind of played the same character he’s played since Heat, but he did a good job with what he was given.
However, every other performer in the film delivers pitiful performances. It’s like they did their casting by thumbing through a Hollister catalog. There’s a lot of pretty faces, but they are all cold, lifeless and completely devoid of human emotion.
This lack of any emotive characters is further exasperated by director Jon Avnet’s inability to create any kind of suspense. Things happen onscreen that are meant to be shocking, but
the pacing of the film renders the effect completely inert. This lack of impact makes the film seem much longer than it is. If Pacino wasn’t onscreen most of the time, I don’t know how I could have sat through it.
The script may be the worst offender of all. Set aside its inane lack of any plausibility. There’s dialogue in this movie that is so bad it would make George Lucas blush. The characters have this nasty habit of verbalizing everything that has just happened onscreen. Is this in consideration of the blind audience members? The film holds your hand the entire way through, making sure you’re receiving the silly things it’s sending. What’s worse, the script gives the characters no time to breathe at all. We never really get to know any of the people onscreen. These are one-dimensional, static characters moving around with all the predictability of an escalator.
The director gives us ho-hum shots and frame composition throughout the picture. It’s better than some I’ve seen, but worse than most. There’s nothing standout, but nothing that
detracts from the film. However, I will say I found the film score to be quite good. It was the only facet that succeeded in moving the film along in any degree.
Right now, we’re in an awkward time of the year for the film industry. Big production companies are holding onto all of their big releases for the summer. As such, they are trying to push out most of the stuff they know won’t do too well so it doesn’t get in the way of their tent-pole projects. This film is a perfect example of this unfortunate time of year.
