This shot says it all: philandering crime shrink Dr. Jack Gramm (Al Pacino) manages to graze the breast of student Kim Cummings (Alicia Witt) with his protective hand during an explosion in the psychological thriller 88 Minutes. PHOTO COURTESY OF SONY PICTURES.
SEBRING, April 29, 2008 – All the bloody crime scenes! All the uppity serial killers! All the young, beautiful women! All the challenges to his gargantuan ego! They keep pullin’ Dr. Jack Gramm (Al Pacino) back into the courtroom, the classroom, the bedroom and, and, whew! those nasty TV “interviews.”
Poor Dr. Gramm has it all, but a disturbing phone call from an altered, electrified voice tells him he has 88 Minutes to live, and Gramm is off on a wild pursuit to find not merely his prospective assailant, but the person committing a new wave of murders that eerily duplicate the Seattle slayer – whom Gramm has sent to prison and a date with old sparky.
Gramm kisses, hugs, fondles and sleeps his way through clues, sorting out suspects, memories, and details, all the while violating every principle of crime scene preservation and acting like a constitution-busting cop when he is not any kind of cop.
It’s almost a hoot, and surely fast and loose, but 88 Minutes does tantalize us with who commits the new murders and who threatens Gramm. The climax is explosive, and it is hard for Pacino to be anything but entertaining, so we are not as down on this film as some critics. 88 Minutes possesses a nervous tension that fuels our speculation as we try to solve the crime with Gramm. We settled on a theory that turned out to be incorrect, but that is the fun of guesswork. The film also reminds us that mental health experts are some of the sickest folks around. It’s worth a matinee or nighttime movie-go on a dead night.
88 Minutes is rated R and plays at the Fairmount Cinema Square.
Our rating (1 to 5 reels): 
Filed under: Sebring movie reviews | Tagged: 88 Minutes, Al Pacino, Alicia Witt, crime thriller, Fairmount Cinema Square, Sebring movies
