Sixty Plus Forty-Eight Minutes

I read a review of 88 Minutes today in The New Yorker. The first line is a sentence I wish I wrote: "The best thing about '88 Minutes' is the title." I don't fully agree with the sentiment, but that's a Hil. Air. Eee. Us. way to begin a review. Thank you, Anthony Lane, for making my day (and for lightening my mood this morning when I was about to murder both my classes for not knowing the material we've been going over since the first week of the semester--really, you don't know what a thesis statement is by now? really???).

At first, I figured 88 Minutes would not be in real time because the movie clocks in at an hour and forty eight minutes. They couldn't call it that, though, because it would be dumb (I'm not saying it's not a dumb movie but I am saying that another name would be dumb). Instead, the 88 minutes begins when Jack Gramm (Al "Pompadour" Pacino) gets the phone call saying he'll be dead in 88 minutes. I didn't realize it was real time until I read The New Yorker article today. I guess my sense of real time has faded since Jack Bauer's been in the clink.

The first few minutes, I was distracted by Jack Gramm's phone. His phone is my phone. The same lil' Nokia with the same cute screen. Mine plays The Humpty Dance and his has a generic ring. Eventually, he drops it down the stairs and the screen breaks, which totally does not happen with this phone. Many a time have I dropped it--once it skidded across the busy floor of Penn Station--and it's still in tact. I don't even know why the phone had to break considering the ominous caller finds his new number to call when he borrows his TA's cell phone, meaning the potential killer must know the TA since the killer has the digits or the killer is the TA but that might be too obvious.

Let's talk about Al Pacino's hair. With every tic toc doc, his hair gets poofier and floofier. It's unreal how high it is by the end. Still, he's a dapper guy, and he makes the movie a movie because he's a good actor. Also, we get to see a picture of him from his younger days and mmm mmm good.

Everyone else in the movie is recognizable in that oh I've seen him/her kind of way. I spent a lot of minutes trying to figure out the movies and shows I've seen them all in. The plot was not difficult to follow so I was multitasking easily. Here are some snippets from my interior monologue.

Alicia Witt plays Kim, Jack's TA. I saw her in Four Rooms. She looks the same as she did back then only now her hair is shorter. Jack shouldn't trust her. Jack should trust her. She's in love with Jack. Alicia Witt and Al Pacino would make a good couple in real life too.

Leelee Sobieski plays some other student whose name I didn't pick up. She's a strange one. She's so friggin eerie. Don't trust her, Jack! She's lying, Jack! Leelee was in that stupid Here on Earth movie. That blew.

William Forsythe. He's always some sort of cop. I have no idea of what his film credits are but I'm certain he's a cop in almost all his stuff. Maybe he was on Miami Vice too. Dang, he delivers his lines as an actor playing a federal agent would deliver lines. Wow, these lines are almost undeliverable. Except for his "Why 88 minutes, Jack?" That was a good line. The only good line. Everything else could have been a silent film. Oh, also except for tic toc doc. That's a good line too.

Benjamin Mackenzie. Was he on One Tree Hill? I used to think he was Chad Michael Murray, aka The Chad, aka douchetool. Oh, no. He was on the OC. Just as bad. Whatever.

Neal McDonough plays the obviously guilty serial killer who tries to get a stay of execution. I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out he has a shady real life because he plays crazy all too well. Not sure what I've seen him in before but he must have been crazy in those films too.

Then there's the woman from that show that I never watched about the judge and I like her and she's a very good actress and she plays opposite Pacino perfectly. Amy Brennemen! I think that's her name.

So then I went back to paying attention to the movie and the countdown said that Jack had 72 minutes to live. You do the math--I think I spent a pretty good portion of the movie figuring out why all the actors were familiar. 88 minus 72 subtracted from 60 minutes plus 48 minutes. Whatever that is, that's how long I spent figuring stuff out.

At 72 minutes left, I thought about Seattle and all the other movies I've seen that take place in Seattle. I could remember only Sleepless In Seattle, which doesn't fully take place there but partially does. I don't remember a lot of rain in that movie. However, rain is non-stop in 88 Minutes which made me like it more because it seemed realer. That made me think of a trip I'm planning with Fred to go to Seattle.

Then I decided to pay attention to the movie because I was out of things to think about. I don't have to go into the plot because you can figure out what happens, right? He's got 88 minutes to live so he tries to figure out who's telling him he's got only 88 minutes to live and much killing ensues. There are some dead women hanging upside down by one leg from an intricate system of ropes and pulleys. There are some recordings of women before they die and as they die. However, there's no snuff films. Do not get this movie confused with 88 MM. That's something completely different.