Movie Review — "88 Minutes"

Dust off your C.S.I. action-figures, folks. The Hollywood serial-killer thriller has struck again.

In the 100 screen minutes of 88 Minutes, at least 60 tick by with head-scratching suspense. But in the ridiculous last 20 minutes, I couldn’t help looking at my watch.

Beat-the-clock dramas are nothing new, whether High Noon, 48 Hours or the postmodern Run Lola Run. Now it’s Al Pacino’s turn to split seconds in an over-caffeinated Seattle version of Run Al Run. Pacino plays a famous forensic psychiatrist who’s methodically stalked by a homicidal madman. The killer calls to tell him that he only has 88 minutes to live.

“Tick-tock, Doc,” is the madman’s voice-synthesized taunt. Time isn’t on Pacino’s side.

As Dr. Jack Gramm, Pacino has to stay alive, flee burning buildings, collar the killer and elude the cops, all in the time it takes to get a Starbucks grande latte at lunchtime. Jack also has to keep a bevy of co-starring beauties out of harm’s way, including his red-headed teaching assistant (Alicia Witt) who has the hots for him. If you’re paying attention, every few minutes director Jon Avnet drops a clue suggesting that one of Jack’s women may be in cahoots with the culprit.

It may also be no coincidence that the imprisoned “Seattle Slayer” (Neal McDonough) was convicted on the basis of Jack’s expert testimony. Audience alert: It wouldn’t take Columbo to notice that the murder/torture victims are all pretty young things. The killer hangs them upside down until dead, one leg provocatively splayed to the side. When it comes to titillating thrillers featuring helpless female victims, Hollywood always has the time.

At a spry 67, Pacino convincingly looks like a man running for his life. By virtue of all the shifty flashbacks and tricked-up subjective visuals, Jack suspicions—and ours—take a flying leap into the paranoid. A master of multi-tasking, Jack conducts this frenetic quest while almost constantly yelling into his cell phone. On the other end is his trusty—and pretty—gay assistant (Amy Brenneman). Jack’s day goes from bad to worse when the seamy evidence of two copycat crimes point to him as the killer.

Like Inspector Clouseau, Jack suspects everyone and no one. Avnet drops in a batch of misleading clues along Jack’s path, making the eventual unveiling of the killer all the more bizarre and unbelievable. Whether the surly dean of his college (Deborah Kara Unger) or a mysterious hit-and-run motorcyclist, Jack’s a guy who has more enemies than Richard Nixon.

Right in the middle of the chaos, Avnet stops the show and kills several precious minutes, long enough for some quality Pacino emoting time. Not only is Jack in a present-day pickle, but he’s haunted by memories of a lurid murder that hit close to home.

The M.O. of tawdry thrillers like 88 Minutes is to pump up the action to a fever-pitch to cover up all the criminally nonsensical plotting. And if you’re talking loak-and-dagger, I’m afraid the idea of uncloaked women victimized by daggers will always be on Hollywood’s Most Wanted List.