recommended

It is a performances centric movie

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

I am no fan of Holiwood movies. They are one dimensional or pretend to have something more. This one does not. It is plain good story america style.

In a day when sadism, cruelty, and torture appear on our TV and movie screens on a daily basis, I am surprised that so many people think this movie is awful.Not to say that I wanted to see the cruel things done in this movie. There were many scenes of partially clad young women being strung upside down and cut. Didn't need that. But these scenes were such that this movie stayed within the bounds of R movies, maybe because those scenes were relatively short.I agree with most of the bad reviews to the extent that the acting wasn't great. I usually love Alicia Witt, but why did we need her character? It really didn't make sense that she followed him everywhere, even more closely than his office assistant. I think she was meant to be another red herring, but then, it's obvious she couldn't have been responsible for everything that was happening.The plot was OK, but had many flaws. If Graham was supposed to die after 88 minutes, then why so many attempts before that. The murderer sure got around almost as if the murderer had a teleportation device. If you think in detail about what was done, including planting DNA evidence, the logistics were just about impossible, at least for one person. And the overall purpose, to vindicate Forster, was actually hurt by all the overkill. One body with semen would have been the most convincing, but all the others leave too much chance for error and questioning by the police.But this movie didn't really require any more suspension of reality that most of the shows and movies we have seen about sadistic serial killers who seem to be almost omnipotent. I can name at least two popular TV shows based on FBI agents that have had multiple plots that were more unbelievable.Neal McDonough makes a great psychopath, but they are always pretty much the same performance.

88 Minutes is one of those movies which keeps you glued to the screen till the very last second. Al Pacino is surely a great actor whom he presents himself with a calm yet attentive personality throughout the whole film as Jack. Thus, his character is one of those reasons you get goose bums all the way during the movie. His students are presented as people who are young and are attending his lessons so that he will teach them what to do in circumstances they are dealing with throughout their studies. Yet, the story takes an unexpected turn when you get to see that they too have their own experiences, sometimes greater then his. Ultimately still, the man with the greatest experience wins. Meanwhile the serial killer is trying to end Jack's life from prison and the plot is interesting in a way that this is done through his students. So the same innocent young students are turned into an unbelievable whole different character to show their teacher what are they worth. It is a fast moving movie, full of suspicions and exciting turn out all the way through. Surely recommend to those who like action movies and a good story!

Al Pacino stars in 88 Minutes as forensic psychologist Jack Gramm. The movie opens in the late 1990s, with women in Seattle being sliced and diced by a serial killer. Someone is arrested for the crimes, and Dr. Gramm's expert testimony helps win our serial killer the death penalty.Flash-forward nine years, to the present day. The killer (Neal McDonough) is still on death row, but the day has come for his execution. Dr. Gramm, meanwhile, continues to lecture graduate students, consult on murders and go about his life in Seattle, but women are still turning up mutilated and dead in his city.Is there a copycat killer, or did he help convict the wrong guy all those years ago?Dr. Gramm does not doubt himself for a second, but then he gets a disturbing phone call, telling him he has 88 minutes to live. Six minutes later, he gets another call telling him he has 82 minutes to live. Three minutes after that, he gets another call telling him he has 79 minutes to live.