Pacino Pockets A Paycheque

Filmed on the cheap almost two and a half years ago in Vancouver and only arriving in North American theatres now, 88 Minutes will likely be remembered only as one of the least distinguished starring vehicles in Al Pacino’s long and admirable film career. Pacino has taken paycheque jobs before (what actor hasn’t?) in movies like The Recruit and Two for the Money, but at least those films came with the consolation of being respectable box-office hits. 88 Minutes, on the other hand, seems destined for a quick, quiet death at the box office—albeit not quite as quick as the one Pacino’s character hears on his cellphone one morning on his way to class telling him he has only 88 minutes left to live.

Pacino plays Jack Gramm, a superstar forensic psychiatrist and university professor whose testimony was instrumental in convicting serial killer Jon Forster. (Meanwhile, the movie never makes a definitive ruling on whether his name is "John" or "Jon"—the spelling keeps switching back and forth.) It’s the day of Forster’s execution, a day Gramm has been looking forward to for years, but he can’t help but be a little distracted by the mysterious voice who keeps leaving him taunting messages (“Tick-tock, doc! Tick-tock!”) counting those 88 minutes down to zero. As if that weren’t bad enough, the woman Gramm slept with the night before has been murdered—the victim of a Forster copycat killer. (The first time we see this woman, she’s standing stark naked in the bathroom, brushing her teeth while holding one outstretched leg up next to her ear. When she’s found dead, she’s hanging from the ceiling by that same leg, which I guess is the movie's idea of a joke. Or irony or foreshadowing or something.)

This is one of those movies that doesn’t have a plot so much as a lot of confusing incidents designed to “keep you guessing” as to which of the supporting characters is the one who’s actually behind Gramm’s phone calls. And so director Jon Avnet—or is that "John"?—has asked everyone in the cast to make their line readings as sinister and ambiguous as possible. They’re not playing characters; they’re playing red herrings. Even the day player who’s been cast as the security guy in Gramm’s building has been coached to give this bizarre, distracting, twitchy performance—I can’t be sure, but he even seems to be wearing a fake mustache. (He looks like Ethan Hawke wearing his robbery disguise from Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead.)

It’s a ridiculous scene, but it doesn’t hold a candle to the climax. I don’t want to spoil the movie by revealing the Shocking Final Twist, but let me just say that the actor playing the murderer delivers one of the most laughably inept “talking killer” monologues in recent years. Even Al Pacino seems as if he can barely believe what he’s seeing—and his pop-eyed look of stupefaction is probably the only believable element in the entire movie.