Dr. Jack Gramm (Al Pacino) is a forensic psychiatrist. Jon Forster (Neal McDonough) is a convicted serial killer. Dr. Gramm testified in Forster’s case in a professional capacity which is said to be the biggest factor that convicted Forster. Jon Forster is going be executed by the state today. On this day, which begins like any other, Dr. Gramm receives a phone call… “You have 88 minutes to live…tick tock, tick tock”. Gramm is now racing to find out who is threatening his life, and stay alive.

I was very reluctant to watch this one, as many of the sites I read have slashed the movie left right and center, which I guess can only work in favour of the film since it lowers my expectations radically. All my hopes and dreams for this movie went when Peter Scriretta from /film posted that 88 Minutes was ranked one of the worst films ever. However, for the purposes of this site, I saw the movie. And can I say… the critics are pretty much right.

Al Pacino, one of the best actors ever, does absolute crap in this movie. Al Pacino is one my favourite actors, he’s played Michael Corleone, Tony Montana, Big Boy Caprice, Lt. Col. Frank Slade and Carlito Brigante. This movie reminds me that even great actors can give horrible performances, like Jack Nicholson in “Something’s Gotta Give”, Tommy Lee Jones in “Space Cowboys” and Sir Ben Kingsley in “BloodRayne”. It only makes me remember the rule that the people behind the camera always matter more than the people in front of it.

Jon Avnet directed the movie, which now makes me know for sure that “Righteous Kill” will be horrible. The direction in this movie was abominable. I don’t think he could make “Iron Man” exciting if we gave him a chance and all the money in the world. Here you have a kind of refreshing thriller idea where someone is being threatened by some random person on the phone. And just like any normal person after the first call you hang up and shrug it off as a prank call… but then after the sixth call and the person is keeping on time with the clock, you start to wonder. I think this idea could’ve been made into a decent movie. Because, let’s be honest, “The Haunting” was a decent thriller and that movie didn’t surprise or have any form of new ideas embedded in it. However, Avnet failed horribly to produce the thriller that was sleeping deep in this project.

So as I mentioned above, I kind of think the premise of the movie is pretty interesting. Gary Scott Thompson wrote the screenplay for the movie. And I have to say it is the best screenplay he has ever written, which isn’t saying much. His previous writing credits are “K-911”, “Hollow Man” and “The Fast and the Furious”. I know what your thinking… why oh why was he allowed to write anything ever again? Well even though I admit to liking the premise, the dialogue in the movie is pretty horrible. It varies from Pacino going “you’re barking up the wrong tree” to “tick tock tock”. The characters don’t feel very understandable, you just feel like you must accept them as generic characters. Pacino plays the protagonist who is being chased around town searching for answers, Kim Cummings (played by Alicia Witt) is the teacher’s pet, Frank Parks (played by William Forsythe) is the detective, and Shelly (played by Amy Brenneman) is the over worked assistant to Pacino’s character. The characters just feel like Gary picked a few professions and decided on gender and sexual orientation and then vomited all over the pages with gibberish. There is no real chemistry between the characters and that is where the writing in the movie fails.

So overall the movie is horrible and I hope you skip it as I should’ve. I think Pacino owes me a really good movie now as he has disappointed me for the previous two films he did as well (“Two For The Money” and “Gigli”), and there are others out there that were horrible but I will not name them.

IMDB says 6.1/10

Rotten Tomatoes says 6%

I say 1.0/10