A “ticking clock” element in a film usually serves to give the action a sense of urgency. A bomb will explode in 10 minutes unless the hero can deactivate it. The FBI have 1 hour to give into a terrorist’s demands or else a bunch of hostages will die. There’s only 30 minutes’ worth of oxygen left in the craft before the crew suffocate to death. The ticking clock puts viewers on the edge of their seats as they wonder whether or not the rescue will be made in time.
This plot device is used in the 2008 thriller 88 Minutes, but because the main character doesn’t seem at all worried about the circumstances, neither does the audience. As a result, the ticking clock becomes merely a transparent gimmick that serves no real purpose to the main action.
Plot summary (with possible spoilers): Dr. Jack Gramm (played by Al Pacino) is a forensic psychiatrist and university professor who routinely cooperates with the FBI to help put serial killers behind bars. One of the murderers Gramm’s testimony put away was Jon Forster (Neal McDonough), the so-called Seattle Slayer whose execution is scheduled to occur within the next 24 hours. Forster spends the day making appearances on news programs to once again declare his innocence and denounce Gramm as a fraud, all in the hopes of receiving a stay from the governor.
Meanwhile, another murder has just occurred (the victim being an acquaintance of Gramm’s) and has been carried out in exactly the same fashion as all the Seattle Slayer killings. The problem is, some of the details present at the new crime scene were never released to the public. That means either Forster really is innocent or else he has an accomplice who is still at large.
While local police and FBI agents work on the latest crime, Dr. Gramm gets a threatening message. He has exactly 88 minutes left to live. There’s no further explanation given, no tasks to perform… the only message is that Dr. Gramm will die in 88 minutes.
Gramm takes this to mean that he must find out who’s behind the threat, so that’s what he does. The rest of the film consists of him trying to track down the new killer — which essentially means suspecting every person in his life at the moment. In the end, Gramm doesn’t so much solve the case as get brought in front of the killer for a confrontation, which of course turns out the way movie audiences expect it to.
My Reaction: I’m not a huge fan of Al Pacino or anything like that, but his films are usually worth watching. 88 Minutes, however, does not fall into this category, as it was just so ludicrous and nonsensical that I can’t believe it didn’t go straight to DVD.
For starters, what was the point of giving Gramm 88 minutes to live? The killer didn’t need Gramm to do anything for her, so why even give him the opportunity to track her down? Sure, the screenwriters tried to make some idiotic connection to Gramm’s sister’s 88-minute torture session, but give me a break. The whole thing was just dumb.
To make matters worse, Gramm acted calm, cool, and collected the entire time, and didn’t give the impression that he was racing against the clock. I mean, he wasted the first 10-15 minutes teaching a freakin’ class, for god’s sake! What was that about? Even if he didn’t take the deadline seriously, you’d think that at the very least he’d bring the threat to the attention of the cops. But no, let’s just go in and teach as usual. Whatever. This utter lack of urgency on Gramm’s part made it hard for me as a viewer to care what was going on. If he didn’t think he was really going to die, why should I worry about it?
And finally, can someone please tell me why the killer would attempt to take out Gramm well before the 88-minute deadline? What was with shooting at him, starting a fire in his building, and blowing up his car? It made no sense at all, and brings me back to my initial point about why set the deadline in the first place.
Overall, I thought 88 Minutes was a terribly lame attempt at a thriller. There was no suspense, no mystery, no logic at all to the plot. Even Pacino in his prime wouldn’t have been good enough to save this one. I give it 1 star out of 5.
I’ve finally managed to finish the entire first season of NCIS, and I have to say that I absolutely loved the last five or six episodes! It took quite a while, but the characters have really grown on me now, and I like the fact that the writers are developing a storyline (that mysterious British terrorist) that arcs beyond a couple of episodes. I am definitely on board for Season 2, and will be hounding my friend until she hands over her DVDs!
Last night’s episode of How I Met Your Mother was called “Shelter Island”, and actually delivered a major plot development for once. As expected (though admittedly not this soon), Stella is not Ted’s future wife or the mother of his kids. They finally broke up, bringing to an end their highly annoying relationship. Yay!
Last night’s episode of Desperate Housewives was called “Back to Business”, and again just nudged a few storylines forward while setting up a few interesting situations. It was a solid ep on the whole, which has me believing that this fifth season will indeed be better than the last two or three. Well, provided the writers can keep up this momentum, of course. Anyway, here’s what happened to Wisteria Lane’s top wives.
After two consecutive weeks at the top of the box office, Beverly Hills Chihuahua was finally knocked off its perch. The new champion is Max Payne, an action film based on a popular video game. Starring Mark Wahlberg as the title character, Payne racked up $18 million in ticket sales over the weekend, easily defeating Chihuahua, which earned $11.2 million.
Adam Brody became one of my favorite actors a few years ago, mostly because of his work on The O.C. I had never seen him in anything else, and can’t really imagine him playing anyone other than Seth Cohen, so when I heard that he had a starring role in the 2007 film In the Land of Women, I immediately went out and rented it. Sure, I was a bit worried about what I would find, since I never knew of this movie’s existence before last weekend, but it actually turned out to be pretty good.
I got so fed up with CSI last year that I decided not to bother tuning in this season. Of course, as soon as I jumped off the bandwagon, things picked up again — at least according to a few of my friends who still watch the show. So I caved in and went out for a TiVo viewing of the first two eps of the season, called “For Warrick” and “The Happy Place”. Here are some thoughts and reactions I had after seeing them. 
Last night’s all-new episode of Grey’s Anatomy was basically an hour of filler. Not much happened with the characters at all, and the season-long story arcs were merely nudged forward by the tiniest bit. There were some fun moments for sure, and I even laughed out loud a couple of times at what was happening, but overall, it wasn’t that great. And since this ep wasn’t presented in a format that’s easy to recap, I’m just going to give my thoughts/reactions about what I saw.
It seems like it’s taking me forever to get through Season 2 of Ghost Whisperer. I’ve been watching eps on and off since the summer, but as they’re not quite as interesting as in S1, I find myself reaching for other DVDs instead. Add my regular fall viewing schedule into the mix, and it’s no surprise that I’m still on episode 2×18 after several months. Here are a few random thoughts about “Mean Ghost”, “The Cradle Will Rock”, “The Walk-In”, and “Children of Ghosts”.
I’ve heard lots of great things about David Baldacci’s thrillers, so I picked up a couple of his novels that last time I was at a bookstore. I liked The Simple Truth well enough, and was eager to move on to the other Baldacci titles on my shelf. I grabbed Split Second next, unaware that this particular work had not been as well received by critics. It didn’t take me long to learn why.