Film Reviews

88 Minutes

• Rating:
• Director: Jon Avnet.
• Starring: Al Pacino, Alicia Witt, Amy Brennerman, Benjamin McKenzie.
• Details: US/Germany/Canada / 108mins (16).

Director Jon Avnet is one of the luckiest directors around; after getting a name for himself with 1989's okay-ish Fried Green Tomatoes, Avnet followed that up with the forgettable Kevin Costner vehicle The War, unremarkable Redford-Pfieffer love story Up Close And Personal and Richard Gere's ordinary courtroom drama Red Corner. Despite those boo-boos, in the last two weeks he landed both Pacino and De Niro in the dreadful Righteous Kill, and Pacino again here. Avnet still managed to screw it up, however. Righteous Kill, bar the Micheal Bay-like 'wooosh' pans, showed Avnet up for a director sans style, and 88 Minutes puts that theory beyond doubt. Pacino, better here than in Righteous Kill, plays Jack Gramm, a Seattle-based psychiatrist and college professor guilty of sending killer Jon Foster (Neal McDonagh) - AKA The Seattle Slayer - to Death Row despite the lack of evidence against him. While Foster's time is ticking away, Jack gets an anonymous phone call telling him he has 88 minutes to live. Jack knows Foster is behind the death threat and must stop the would-be killer before his time is up. With it's Poirot-like opener - we're introduced to all the characters where Avnet asks 'guess which one is it' - poor dialogue, unbelievable plot-twists and the constant reminder of who everyone is and what is happening, 88 Minutes is amateur hour.

Review by Gavin Burke