88 Minutes will add a little more luster to a career that has not been adequately appreciated perhaps because of the suspiciously seductive power of a little man with an outsize talent.
88 Minutes (2008)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:120
Fresh:6
Rotten:114
Average Rating:2.6/10
Consensus: 88 Minutes is a shockingly inept psychological thriller that expertly squanders the talent at hand.
Rated: R [See Full Rating] for disturbing violent content, brief nudity and language.
Runtime: 1 hr 48 mins
Genre: Action/Adventure
Theatrical Release:Apr 18, 2008 Wide
Box Office: $16,930,884
Synopsis: In 88 MINUTES, Dr. Jack Gramm (Al Pacino), a Seattle-based college professor and forensic psychiatrist, is informed by an enigmatic caller that he has exactly that amount of time to live. The... In 88 MINUTES, Dr. Jack Gramm (Al Pacino), a Seattle-based college professor and forensic psychiatrist, is informed by an enigmatic caller that he has exactly that amount of time to live. The threat is linked to Gramm's role in putting a convicted serial killer (Neal McDonough) behind bars nearly a decade earlier, and sends the scholar/consultant on a desperate run to avert his imminent demise. Entering into Gramm's dangerous orbit are his dutiful assistant (Amy Brenneman), an FBI agent (William Forsythe), and his admiring young students (most notably Alicia Witt), all of whom add layers to the tense mystery. Shelved for years, 88 MINUTES was finally released in U.S. theaters during 2008, marking director Jon Avnet's first feature-film project since 1997's RED CORNER. (Avnet was brought in as a replacement for original helmer James Foley.) Pacino clearly knows his way around a thriller (see HEAT and INSOMNIA), and approaches his beleaguered character with typical gusto, while his costars, particularly Forsythe and Witt, also offer up energetic turns. Though the high-concept plot is secondary to Pacino's agitated performance, even those who drift from the storyline will appreciate the Hollywood veteran's over-the-top acting, especially if they are diehard fans of the iconic actor. [More]
Starring: Al Pacino, Alicia Witt, Leelee Sobieski, Amy Brenneman
Starring: Al Pacino, Alicia Witt, Leelee Sobieski, Amy Brenneman, Deborah Unger, Neal McDonough, William Forsythe, Melinda Clarke
Director: Jon Avnet
Director: Jon Avnet
Screenwriter: Gary Scott Thompson
Producer: Randall Emmett, Gary Scott Thompson, Jon Avnet
Composer: Edward Shearmur
Studio: Sony Pictures Entertainment
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Reviews for 88 Minutes
While 88 Minutes is no 3:10 To Yuma, this beat-the-clock escape artist fare that's light on logic and heavy on the shoe leather, sustains sufficient breathlessly nerve-jangling lockdown for the duration, despite a couple of weirdly situated plot holes.
If you like your women half-naked, strung upside-down from pulleys, and sliced like deli meat, this is the movie for you. Whether the victims are more tortured than the plot is a serious question.
When they were counting down the 88 minutes, I just kept saying to myself, "oh man, this movie still has 72 minutes left?" "Oh man, this movie has 17 minutes left?" I just couldn't wait to get out of the theatre.
For sheer silliness, nothing in 88 Minutes tops the fact that Witt's English ex-con husband boasts the ridiculously fanciful name Guy LaForge, presumably because "Fakey McMake-Believe" was already taken.
This is easily one of the silliest, most preposterous thrillers ever made, and the only reason it didn't go straight to video has to be that it stars Pacino.
The picture easily snatches from Revolution the prize as Al Pacino's career worst.
...looks as if they put the cast and crew together by handing out fliers on Hollywood Boulevard asking if anyone wants to write, direct, or act in a Hollywood movie.
Given that 88 Minutes actually runs 108 minutes, it's tempting to make the joke that the movie is 20 minutes too long. In actuality, it's 108 minutes too long.
What a bore. I guessed the identity of the killer from the character's second appearance, and I'm not that smart.
Nothing would give me keener pleasure than to reveal the identity of the killer, but a day after seeing the film I have genuinely forgotten.
88 Minutes plays like a script Tom Cruise rejected back in the ’90s, forcing Pacino to run -- across campus, across town, through parking garages, up and down stairs.
The film is a disaster in every way possible. I have rarely seen a big budget, star studded, major studio motion picture flop this hard.
The film had no opening credits, except for the title 88 Minutes. Maybe that's because no one wanted to take credit for this mess.
Latest News for 88 Minutes
January 21, 2009:
Razzies Name 2008's Worst Movie Nominees
No awards season would be complete without the Golden Raspberry Awards (AKA The Razzies), awarded each year to the very worst movies to hit Hollywood. This year's winners will... More...
October 03, 2008:
UK Critics Consensus: How To Lose Friends & Alienate People Does Just That; Whilst Brideshead Revisited Is Resisted
In the UK cinemas this week we have two literary adaptations with Simon Pegg as an irksome hack in How To Lose Friends & Alienate People, and Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited... More...
September 09, 2008:
While 88 Minutes is no 3:10 To Yuma, this beat-the-clock escape artist fare that's light on logic and heavy on the shoe leather, sustains sufficient breathlessly nerve-jangling lockdown for the duration, despite a couple of weirdly situated plot holes. ![]()
More...
April 22, 2008:
Pacino, De Niro Take Lumps for Recent Choices ![]()
Robert De Niro and Al Pacino might be among the greatest living American actors -- but have they forgotten why they started acting in the first place? More...
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