Al Pacino's worst since REVOLUTION, Todd McCarthy says.

It's been sitting around for a long time. Leelee Sobieski worked on this back-to-back with both THE WICKER MAN remake and IN THE NAME OF THE KING, making for a great triple header.

Al Pacino's "people" read a script of mine last year and passed on it, meaning they weren't going to kick it up to "Al." I actually wasn't surprised and never saw the role in question going to someone that "big" but the whole inner circle process rankled me in a subdermal way. If I had an inner circle who urged me on to the sort of stuff Pacino has been doing post-THE INSIDER (S1M0NE, THE RECRUIT, GIGLI, TWO FOR THE MONEY), I'd find a new inner circle.

Sounds like a must-see!

You got that right!

Say... it's a Nu Image flick! Hopefully this one does okay for them (coming on the heels of the 18m gutshot they took on the Day of the Dead remake).

I've seen 88 MINUTES, unfortunately.

Easily the worst film of Pacino's career.

OO-AH!

I'll see 88 MINUTES opening night. Not since D-TOX (which I also saw opening night in a theater) have I waited so long to see a movie with one of my favorite stars.

Some good news for Pacino fans: In February 2009, he'll be on Broadway in a revival of Lyle Kessler's ORPHANS. The play and the role are perfect for him. (Albert Finney played the part in the movie.) I hope to see it twice.

Am I the only person who sees the 88 MINUTES ads on TV and immediately thinks, "Well, Leelee Sobieski is the killer." I mean they just show one shot of here looking at Pacino with starry stalker eyes. That - combined with the killer wearing a helmet and stuff leads me to that. If I am right, that is just sad.

Well, if Pacino gets into a fistfight with her while wearing a bear costume, I might check it out.

Just saw it....it's this year's THE WICKER MAN!!! Chalk up another winner for Leelee!

In all fairness, I didn't find it horribly bad--it's never dull and Pacino and the supporting cast keep it more interesting than it has any right to be, but this will be hard to top as the silliest thriller of 2008. One pointless red herring after another, one ludicrous plot twist on top of another, one glaring continuity error after another (did the filmmakers forget that Pacino was using Alicia Witt's cell phone? And after the escape from Pacino's apartment, when did Witt grab her jacket?).

Perhaps these weren't continuity errors...maybe Witt did grab her jacket, and maybe Pacino did give her cell phone back to her. Maybe. Maybe I was so transfixed by Al's Phil Spector-inspired bouffant that I was completely unable to concentrate on anything else. Of course, the length and style of his hair changes from shot to shot, often within the same scene. Classic.

Another thought: when's the last time you saw anything from TriStar Pictures? I KNOW WHO KILLED ME? Is TriStar the dumping ground for the stuff Sony finds too embarrassing? Is it just code for "Well, it should go straight to DVD, but there's a big star in it, so it's worth a shot"?

All in all, another stellar effort from the folks at Millennium/NuImage/Equity Pictures/whatever Medienfonds GmbH. There's at least four production company logos before the movie starts...it would've been perfect if this one were on the roll call:

The Missing Ingredient

But if this had been a Cannon movie, then Pacino would've only been the star of the the full-page Variety ads out of Mifed and Cannes. When the movie finally hit multiplexes two years later, it would've had Bronson, Norris or Dudikoff in the lead. :D

I finally caught up to this over the weekend as well. I had to, for curiosity's sake, after my brush with the filmmakers at Planet Hollywood (see J. Tilly thread).

I pretty much concur with Mark's comments. Highly implausible, with Pacino the most unlikely late-middle-age ladies' man (and perhaps most dangerous one, too) since Paul Kersey; equally deadly rescue workers (gotta love fire trucks that almost run over several people on their way to save lives); the leeway Pacino gets, etc. But should be rewatchable in that way that hilarious bad movies always are.

Interestingly, I KNOW WHO KILLED ME came to mind while I was watching it, because that film has become my litmus test for just how bad the movie is. Probably the worst film I've seen this decade. 88 MINUTES is nowhere near that level of badness. As Mark said, it's never dull.

88 MINUTES wasn't really any worse IMO than, say, TWO FOR THE MONEY. I'd watch it a second time before many of Pacino's recent endeavors.

HCH