Dorkgasm Gonzo Is God

Time Keeps on Ticking
By
Michael C. Riedlinger
Editor-In-Chief

            With procedural dramas all the rage on television these days, it is no wonder that someone in Hollywood would want to bring that success to the silver screen. Hire some amazingly attractive actresses, get Al Pacino to star in it, and you should have cinema gold, right? 88 Minutes, however, proves that there is a flaw in this logic, one that someone should really have thought of before going into production.

            The story of this stinker follows troubled behaviorist Dr. Jack Gramm (Pacino) as he attempts to unravel the mystery of who will murder him. The serial killer he put away nine years before is rather upset about his pending execution by the state, and keeps telling reporters “the real killer is out there”. Of course, when women start dying according to the killer’s M.O., the FBI takes note and begins to question whether or not Gramm’s evidence was truly valid or not. When one of the new victims turns out to be one of his students, the feds begin to doubt that the conviction of serial killer Jon Forster will stand. Gramm has no doubts that this is all a set up, however, because it’s about this time that he starts receiving calls telling him that he has a limited time to live. Just wait kids; the coincidences are just getting started!

            After a bomb threat is called into the university that he teaches at, the threats grow more serious. First, his car is trashed, with a note reminding him he has only 72 minutes left, then one of his star pupils is attacked by a mysterious, leather-clad motorcyclist. By this time, director Jon Avnet (Fried Green Tomatoes) and writer Gary Scott Thompson (2 Fast 2 Furious) have made everyone look like a suspect except one person, so it’s easy to figure out whodunit if you’re paying attention.

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            Pacino runs around Seattle abusing his friendship with the FBI agent on the case in order to clear his name in the titular amount of time. Special Agent Frank Parks looks the other way so often that he may as well be a suspect too, but I digress. Jack heads home for a spell, dragging along his T.A., Kim Cummings (Alicia Witt, Law & Order: CI), for no good reason. Along the way, the biker harasses them intermittently and it turns out that he is not only Kim’s ex-husband, but also spent time in prison with the killer, Jon Forster! He receives an audio tape of his sister’s murder (told you he was troubled), his apartment starts on fire, and the biker shows up at his door, only to get shot by another biker. Then his car blows up!

            No, I’m not just making this up. The most agonizing part of this film is that it pretends to be temporal, lasting a full 88 minutes from when Dr. Gramm receives his first phone call to the end of the credits. The problem is it jams so much action into that time that we hardly get to breath. One guy sitting a row behind me was already complaining that it felt like the most boring episode of 24 he had ever seen only 30 minutes in. Avnet and Thompson might want to rethink inspiring audiences to check their watches through the course of any future films.

            That this is all a set up by a copycat killer on the outside is so obvious that we begin to wonder how anyone doubts Dr. Gramm at all. What could have been an interesting examination behind the motives of those who make giving expert testimony at trials a profession turns into another bad thriller with no substance. By the time we find out who the killer really is, we just want to scream “told ya so” at the screen as loud as we can. Most of the dialogue feels like it was written just moments before shooting the scenes, and despite Pacino’s phenomenal ability, even he comes off as stilted. In fact, it almost seems like he got bored and started doing an impression of himself to pass the time. Let’s hope that his upcoming project, Righteous Kill with Robert DeNiro is better than this film was, because otherwise we might be left counting down the days until he retires.