88 MINUTES REVIEW
By Laura House
Whoo. Al Pacino. Where to begin? Well, let’s cut to the chase: “88 Minutes” is crappy. It just is. I’m not biased or out to get anybody. I’m just telling you that it’s not a movie you’re going to like, so save your money. Or, actually, I don’t know you. Maybe you’ve never seen a movie before. Maybe you don’t even understand how film works. Maybe you don’t know that it’s actually still images moving very quickly and your eye and brain put it all together and make it look like moving pictures. If that’s the case, I think you’ll be incredibly impressed with this film. I mean, it’s definitely a film. It’s filmed and everything.
It’s not like it’s the worst movie I’ve ever seen. It’s not even the worst movie I’ve seen this year. It’s just that, well, it’s a suspense thriller, right? I got in trouble for laughing. I can’t help it. When suspense doesn’t work, as in much of “88 Minutes,” it’s ridiculous.
Al Pacino gets his Al Pacino moments. You know, the ones that are blustery and loud. He gets to yell stuff at his long-time cop friend, “Can’t you see I’m being framed? What, you think I blew up my car? You think I fired bullets at myself? C’mon, you know me better than that.” And his grizzled couldn’t-get-Powers-Booth-so-they-got-this-guy guy gets to say, “I don’t know you at all any more.”
It’s sad, in a way. It meant a whole other thing to say you were in an Al Pacino movie 20 years ago. That dude made some movies. But now, he’s orange and looks like he just came out of a toaster. That’s what my date said, anyway, and I concurred. The same date who got mad at me for laughing. What’s that about? You can whisper commentary to me, but I can’t flat-out laugh at the ridiculous dialogue?! I then realized we’d only seen comedies together, so far. Except “Leatherheads.” Nobody was laughing there.
I had to explain to this dude that I have to keep myself entertained at all times. I don’t know why, I’m just born this way. And if the movie in front of me with Leelee Sobieski and that guy from the O.C. won’t do it for me, I’ll do it myself. Like, any time Sobieski stood next to Al Pacino it was hysterical. He’s so tiny. I’m sure she’s regular-sized, petite even. (editor’s note: Perhaps the production was out of apple crates) But she looked like a giant monster who might eat him. And that’s all I could picture, that it’d get all Cloverfield up in there. And I laughed. And that guy from the O.C. was emoting all over the place, like he did on the O.C., but he was playing a supposed smart guy med student, and then I had to laugh again. Then you add that the girl from “Judging Amy” was an intensely stern lesbian and you have so little to not laugh at, really.
But my date was “trying to get into it,” and I was distracting him. I asked why even try? If it’s good, you’re into it. But he feels there are hardly any good movies anymore so he does the best he can to suspend disbelief and enjoy what’s offered. That’s too much work for me. Here’s the deal: If you’re going to make a movie where the “scary” catch phrase is “Tic toc, Doc.” I’m laughing. And can’t nobody take that away from me.
—Laura House
