88 Minutes
(2006/Sony DVD)
Picture:
C+ Sound: C+ Extras: C Film: C
After
being in limbo for a while, Sony picked up the Al Pacino thriller 88 Minutes (2006) because they needed
star product and he was about to co-star with Robert DeNiro in Righteous Kill. It is hard to ever imagine either actor doing
straight-to-video fare, though the recent glut of outside production that we’ll
all be saddled with until late 2009.
Ironically, both films are directed by Jon Avnet (who also produced) and
this one is his first theatrical film in ten years and Red Corner (1997) was not bad either.
In this
case, the film starts out with some promise as Pacino plays a forensic
psychologist about to put a killer (Neal McDonough) away, but suddenly, there
is a strange phone call in a disguised voice that tell shim he has 88 minutes
to live and is similar to what the convict said to him when he was
convicted. If that man is in prison,
then who is stalking him? Well, that
becomes the guessing game and then the film has to make it work or not.
Unfortunately,
Gary Scott Thompson’s screenplay is formulaic, predictable, wastes a good cast
and my guess about who was up to no good was within the first two reels was all
too sadly accurate. That’s a shame,
because this has a good cast, including Alicia Witt, Amy Brenneman, William
Forsythe, Leelee Sobieski, Deborah Kara Unger, Victoria Tennant and Brendan
Fletcher, so that was not the weak point of the film, which runs 107
minutes. Too bad it plays it far too
safe.
The anamorphically
enhanced 2.35 X 1 is weak in the detail and Video Black department, though a
Blu-ray was also issued; we never received it by posting time. Denis Lenoir, A.S.C., A.F.C., (who also
lensed Righteous Kill) does some
nice shooting here and tries to come up with something different, but it cannot
save what could have worked with more effort.
The Dolby Digital 5.1 mix is also flat at time, with a problematic
soundmix, but Ed Shearmur’s score is not bad.
Extras include an alternate ending with the same killer, separate
interview pieces with Pacino (The
Character Within) and Avnet and feature length audio commentary by Avnet
that is interesting.
- Nicholas Sheffo
