(andPOP) - On any given night, whatever's on television is better than what's at the multiplex. I know it, viewers know it, distributors pretend not to know it. 30 Rock and The Office are funnier than anything not produced by Judd Apatow, 24 packs more action (and a better plot) than any non-Asian film which doesn't star Clive Owen or Jason Statham, Heroes and Lost are as exciting as the best installments of X-Men and Spider-Man and The X-Files (which I've been re-watching on DVD recently) remains creepier than any American horror film to hit screens in the last nine years.
Which is why, when writing a film review for andPOP, in addition to gauging how successful a movie is at accomplishing whatever it sets out to do and considering which details to share with readers so they know whether or not they'd enjoy it, I keep in mind whether I'd pay good money to see it. In the case of 88 Minutes, the answer is a definite no. It's a decent movie, but like many police procedurals it's not as good as an equivalent episode of Law and Order, CSI, or Without A Trace - an observation that has always baffled me, since television's primary advantage over film is deeper characters, and none of these shows are character-driven to begin with.
The setup is simple: in 1997 (a time period established by the Backstreet Boys on the soundtrack) forensic psychiatrist Dr. Jack Gramm (Al Pacino) offers a testimony that puts accused rapist/murderer John Forster (Neil McDonough) on death row. Nine years later (the movie takes place in 2006, when it was originally supposed to be released) Forster is twelve hours away from execution when a similar murder happens and Dr. Gramm receives a phone call (complete with the sardonic "tick tock" Forster whispered before being led away) informing him he has 88 minutes left to live.
No, the film does not take place in real time, though I believe it tries. The talented cast is hobbled by tacky cinematography (which I'll get to in a moment) and a heavy-handed screenplay filled with unnecessary flashbacks, characters who announce their past deeds and relationships to each other without a moment's thought, and plot holes you could drive a truck (or at least a minivan) through.
I'm probably reading too much into it, but there's a misogyny to 88 Minutes that I didn't like. Granted, the supporting cast is primarily women, but they're either victims, bitches, or a lesbian (and in retrospect there's five male and six female supporting characters, plus two victims and Pacino, so this is really just an illustration of how used we are to seeing men dominate the screen). The female lead is named Kim Cummings - I'd love to hear screenwriter Gary Scott Thompson explain that.
Then there are the murders. Not only is the murderer's method - hoisting his victims by one leg so they hang upside-down with their legs splayed open - vile, but so is the movie's approach to photographing them. The cinematography always focuses on the victim's pose (which early on is duplicated by a live woman, naked) then their midriffs as the murderer cuts them, then their upper bodies. Then again, this is a procedural, many viewers enjoy such lurid details, and rapist/murderers exist in real life, so make of that what you will.
As Roger Ebert once observed, there's a fascination to watching Al Pacino play law enforcement agents or criminal types, since he (the same can be said of Robert De Niro) has been doing such roles for over 30 years now. Real cops and criminals have grown up on Pacino's mannerisms, and it's difficult to believe he couldn't tackle an actual case. As a professor and forensic psychiatrist, Pacino once again appears to be a professional playing himself. Like so much of his recent work, however, the supporting material lets him down.
