{grate 2} The opening of Jon Avnet’s psych thriller plops a drunken Al
Pacino in the middle of a crowded college-age bar, where he shimmy-shakes to a
clubbed-up remix of Usher’s “Yeah.” For the next “88 Minutes,” he’ll stretch
his rip ‘n’ roar style as far as it can go, but isn’t mixing Usher and Pacino
bad enough? The film implodes as time ticks away, failing to drum up enough
nuggets to tantalize until the inevitable end; we instead do our own countdown,
wanting to purge ourselves of whatever secret Pacino is chasing.
The film begins during a let-loose night for Pacino’s Jack
Gramm, a forensic psychiatrist and college professor who is celebrating the
impending execution of Jon Forster, who strings up women and bleeds them dry as
the serial-killing “Seattle Slayer.” Gramm’s testimony as a psychiatrist was
key to locking Forster away, so while the tipsy prof rubs elbows barside with
enamored 20-year-old students, Forster feeds his lust for vengeful
machinations. Life unravels for Gramm when, the next day, the FBI comes
knocking, his students start dying and Forster receives a stay of execution.
And of course, the biggest problem is the call with the gravely voice: “You
have 88 minutes to live. Tick-tock.”
As a filmic device, Avnet’s countdown does little to tense
up the drama or animate the characters. Gramm keeps the death threat to himself
for much of the film, zipping around
dreary sceneries in a scramble for clues. The supporting characters zip too,
but only around Gramm himself, needlessly pecking at him like flies at a trap
before they get ensnared in strings of glue and glop.
It’s hard not to be mesmerized as Pacino navigates the
screen. His presence is absolute in “88 Minutes,” straddling every scene and
nearly every line. Avnet doesn’t leash the hot-blooded Pacino, letting him
throw his impulsive stagecraft around, particularly in gleeful moments when
Gramm faces down Forster. But the best Pacino has always proved to be a more
muted one, when he was icy as Michael in “The Godfather” or calculating as Will
Dormer in “Insomnia.” Avnet’s Pacino lacks that underhanded fortitude, partly
because his character doesn’t take the time to sit and stew, but mostly because
he devours the film’s weaker side characters with his frenetic, all-engulfing
aura.
Avnet resurrects bad TV with the supporting cast, bringing
in Amy Brenneman (“Judging Amy”) and Alicia Witt (“Law & Order: Criminal
Intent”) as Pacino’s partners in his race against time. The two give terribly
coined performances: Brenneman as Gramm’s gay secretary Shelly Barnes and Witt
as his cutesy student Kim Cummings. More characters come into play as the clock
ticks on and Gramm’s suspect list grows longer. The culprit could be the other
lesbian Lauren Douglas, Gramm’s sharpest student, played by Leelee Sobieski. Or
it could be his most outspoken one, Mike Stempt played by another bad TV
veteran Benjamin McKenzie (“The OC”). Even with the structure of time, the
film’s many red herrings writhe around each other in too jumbled a manner. By
the end of “88 Minutes,” Avnet’s big reveal halts a ride that started oddly,
dipped around in the middle, then slowed to a stop — it’s not the track a
thriller should follow.