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List Price: $14.94 | | Label: Sony Pictures
Salesrank: 11155
Released: September 16, 2008 |
| Our Price: $2.75 |
| Used Price: $1.13 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Genre: Drama
Rating: R
Release Date: 16-SEP-2008
Media Type: DVD
Description of 88 Minutes:
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)
88 Minutes Reviews:
Tick Tock, is it over yet? 
2009-11-28 - As bad as it gets. I love Pacino but even he couldn't bring this garbage to life. Leelee Sobieski was the bad one? Wasn't she in the TV show "A Horse for Danny" back in the 90's? Hopefully Pacino made a lot of money because this sure didn't help what's left of his stellar career. Just a dumb movie.
Pacino Looks As Bored In The Movie As The Audience Watching It
2009-11-24 - Just caught this on cable tv and I am thankful for three things after watching it:
1. I did not pay money to see it in the theaters
2. I did not pay money to buy the DVD
3. I did not pay money to rent the DVD
I would not send my worst enemy into the theater to watch this mess of a movie. I have never seen Pacino look so bored in front of the camera. I think he realized what a stinker the movie he was making would be and so just went through the motions. It doesn't help that Pacino is really starting to look his age, thus making him old, tired, and bored. I would hope a man of his enormous talent would be so picky and choosy about what movies he agrees to be in at this stage in his life. For the life of me I don't know what Pacino saw in the script, but whatever it was supposed to be, the end result was a terrible movie.
The other one star reviewers have done a good job of explaining what made the movie so bad, so I won't repeat them. Just know this is probably the worst Pacino film I have ever seen. Actually forget about Al, this would have been a terrible movie regardless of who was in the starring role. This is not so much a review as a warning to stay far away from this movie. If you decide not to read any of the one star reviews and buy it anyway, well then all I can say is you get what you deserve!
Review of 88 Minutes 
2009-10-12 - This is a fantastic movie. I love Al Pacino and this movie was not a dissapointment. Lots of action and suspense and until the end, I was held to my seat.
88 minutes
2009-09-28 - Good movie, but when is Al pacino ever in a bad one. It was suspenseful and exciting. i recommend to anyone
Tick Tock Al, It's The Sound Of Your Career Running Out 
2009-09-25 - I love Al Pacino and have watched him in many a bad movie. Even when the film sucks, like this one kind of does, he does something to make it watchable and entertaining for fans. Here he plays forensic psychologist Jack Gramm. In addition to his medical practice, Jack teaches a criminal studies class at a local college. He's a a bit of a ladies man after hours keeping company with call girls, his students (Alicia Witt and Lelee Sobieski), his secretary (Amy Brenneman) and even the dean of the college (Deborah Kara Ungar). It was Jack's crucial testimony years earlier that earned a rapist (Neal McDonough) the death penalty. On the day of the execution, Jack awakes to find a man on a motorcycle outside his house. When he arrives at work he sees that the motorcyclist has followed him. He then gets a call on his cell phone in which someone tells him he has only 88 minutes left to live. Jack starts an investigation that has his put upon gay secretary (Brenneman) making about a hundred phone calls and checking the records of the prison, his students, the woman he was with last night and so on and so forth. Jack is clueless as to who is taunting him and his paranoia causes him to run around campus like a madman snatching cell phones away from terrified students. Teaming up with one of his students (Witt), Jack attempts to prove that the murderer he put away is behind this latest threat. The film takes place in real time once Jack is threatened but it's never all that suspenseful. Jack takes the news in stride and he and Witt go to his apartment and basically chill for a half hour until he gets another phone call telling him where to go. Once the person's identity is revealed there have been so many ridiculous twists and turns that the film becomes laughable. The best scene involves an exasperated Jack yelling at an FBI guy (William Forsythe) who believes Jack is behind it all. "Did I blow up my own car? Did I shoot bullets at myself?", Jack yells. (His explanation of how his "DNA" came to be found on a murder victim is also pretty funny). Hell, in the bonus features Pacino admits that much of the film is illogical but that he was still attracted to the material for whatever reason. He says he had a good time making it but that doesn't guarantee that fans will have a good time watching it. The film was made way back in 2005 and shelved for nearly three years. It was directed by Jon Avnet who would reunite Pacino and DeNiro months later in 'Righteous Kill', another ridiculous film, but one that is much more entertaining than this one.
