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Al Pacino is back as another world-weary character, this time up against a timetable as his own life hangs in the balance.

Directed by Jon Avnet and filmed almost completely in ‘real’ time, 88 Minutes gets too clever for its own good way too fast, so the easiest thing to do is sit back and try to enjoy the ‘revelations’ as they are revealed.

Jack Gramm (Al Pacino) teaches psychology in Seattle but is called upon occasionally as an expert witness by the FBI.  One of the men convicted due to his testimony is Jon Forster (Neal McDonough), who was put away after he raped and killed one of two twins in their home 9 years ago.  Facing the death penalty, Forster is amping up his appeals process, with less than a day left before he’s to be put to death by lethal injection.

Gramm is a womanizer, and we first meet him in the bed of a one night stand he picked up while out celebrating with colleagues and students the night before.  He receives word that another body has turned up with the exact same M.O. that Forster’s victims had, which is casting doubt on his testimony.

A video at the crime scene of the victim telling Gramm that he wrong man adds to the doubts about the Forster case, and as Gramm heads to class he receives the fateful call telling him that he has only 88 minutes to live.  The call ends with the same ‘tick tock’ that Forster used when they spoke at his trial, and the game is afoot!  Once in class, Gramm continues to receive phone calls, all reiterating the time, counting down until a bomb threat clears the building.  As he tries to leave, Gramm notices a slide on the projector that reads “76 minutes to live…” which now casts suspicions on his students as well as people he might’ve testified against in the past.

From this point on, Gramm’s timetable is roughly told in real time, and the plot twists go further and further beyond the realm of possibility and into the “Huh?” or “Oh, c’mon!” range as he manages to turn on everyone in his inner circle at one time or another in his efforts to find out who is making the threats and doing the copy-cat killings.  Being the Lothario that he is, this mostly consists of a group of hot women that includes Leelee Sobieski, Alicia Witt, Debra Kara Unger and Amy Brenneman, all of whom are connected to him either through the school or business.  Further complicating the situation is his disbelieving buddy from the FBI played by William Forsythe and an ex-boyfriend of one of his students who may be a stalker or something more sinister.

What stretches the believability of 88 Minutes is the tenuous connections Gramm keeps drawing with the world around him as he tries to work out the whodunit, as everyone he’s ever met evidently has some weird connection to the Forster case that puts them under the microscope. The phone calls and slides and vandalized cars with the countdown timetable also wear thin, as any small change in his plans would throw off the timeframe dramatically, hell, I believe the killer even manages to track him down on someone else’s cellphone when his own is broken; how’s that for a dedicated stalker?  What if Gramm suddenly had to hit the toilet, would the blimp hired with “68 minutes to live” written on the side just have been a huge waste of money?  Sorry, but this film stretches the viewers suspension of disbelief to the limits at times with the killer’s all knowing personna.

88 Minutes is a actually a very decent DVD presentation, boasting a feature commentary by director Jon Avnet, an alternate ending that has a decidedly morally ambiguous tone compared to the one presented in the film, and two short featurettes with Avnet and Pacino respectively, as they reflect on the characters, the film,  and the experience of making it.  A whopping 23 trailers (!) round out the package.

88 Minutes is a very average thriller that easily falls apart if you pick at it too much.  I can see watching it on a lazy afternoon, but you won’t remember many of the details afterward, and I don’t know that you’d come back to it any time soon.

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