'88 minutes' wastes time, talent

Few things are more depressing in movies than watching a great actor, one of the best of his generation, treading water in a project that does not deserve his presence. This is Al Pacino collecting a paycheck in "88 Minutes,” a procedural drama weighed down by a laughable script, hammy acting and a few key moments when Jon Avnet's direction falls to the level of incompetence.

Pacino plays Dr. Jack Gramm, a forensic psychoanalyst who teaches at a Seattle-area university and regularly testifies in murder trials. His most notorious case involved the torture murders committed by Jon Forster (Neal McDon-ough), who is on death row awaiting imminent execution. But just as his date arrives, a string of copycat crimes puts Gramm's testimony — and Forster's guilt — in question.

Then Gramm starts getting cell phone calls in which he is told he has 88 minutes to live. Each voice-distorted call features the phrase "Tick-tock, Doc,” which is far more irritating than menacing. There are bomb threats and near misses with oncoming motorcycles, and one of his students (Leelee Sobieski, turning in the most annoying performance this side of a Uwe Boll movie) gets attacked in a parking garage.

In "88 Minutes” (in truth, 106 minutes long), characters explode with accusatory windbaggery without any clear motivation other than the need to ramp the tension. And several lines in Gary Scott Thompson's exposition-heavy script are preposterous: William Forsythe, playing an FBI agent who suspects Gramm might be the murderer, bellows at him, "I don't know who you are anymore!” Seriously.

And poor Alicia Witt, an actress who has always deserved a better showcase, is given little to do as Pacino's star student other than look shocked, scream a little and strip down to a camisole. The film climaxes with the real killer, whose identity gets telegraphed from the beginning, delivering a "why I did it” speech worthy of James Bond villain Ernst Blofeld.

Adding insult to injury, Avnet commits a glaring continuity error: Pacino's hair changes shape and color: poofy and jet-black in one scene, shorter and graying the next. Since the action allegedly takes place in 88 minutes, that's not enough time for multiple trips to the stylist.

Pacino has been a key ingredient in some of the best films of the 20th century. His 21st century audiences deserve better than to suffer through "88 Minutes” of sheer idiocy.

— George Lang