88 Minutes (Blu-ray)
APPROX. 107 MINS. - PROD. YEAR: 2008 - MPA RATING: R
" The movie runs blandly through its paces without generating an ounce of tension or suspense.
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On top of all this, pile on a secret from Jack's past, plus a freight load of coincidences, and you get a pretty far-fetched plot. But, wait, it gets even more ridiculous as it goes along, as Jack himself becomes implicated in the latest murder! After that we get a barrage of bullets and another inexplicable killing and then an exploding car, and, well, the silliness just goes on and on.
Of course, Jack could have avoided the whole mess if he had simply gone to the police when he first received the threatening phone call, but then we wouldn't have had a movie. Instead, Jack decides to solve the case himself. In eighty-eight minutes. Sure.
By the time the movie's climax rolls around and we get the revelation of the killer, we couldn't care less. Or maybe we care too much, considering the ending is so monumentally absurd. Anyway, we've seen so many plot loopholes by this time, it doesn't matter. "88 Minutes" never felt so long.
Video:
The Sony transfer engineers use a MPEG-4/AVC codec and a dual-layer BD50 to get the most out of the 2.35:1 ratio picture, which apparently wasn't enough to compensate for the original print's lack of robust hues. The director intentionally keeps the color palette subdued, meaning he probably wanted to imbue the story with a dark, grim, iron-grey tone and chose colors to match, with contrast levels equally heavy at times, making whites and blacks stand out even more. Then, when the picture is not so bright or glossy, it looks slightly dull and veiled. A mixed bag. On the more positive side, the definition is generally good, with only brief patches of softness, and a moderate film grain furnishes a realistic texture.
Audio:
Just as the Sony engineers try to achieve the best possible video, so do they try to offer the best possible sound in Dolby TrueHD 5.1. Unfortunately, as with the video, they didn't have the best materials to work with. On a few occasions the bass thunders out, we feel an impressive dynamic impact, and we note a few rear-channel effects. Most of the time, though, it's only the front speakers that carry the brunt of the work, the surrounds hardly used at all. The soundtrack does its job, and that's about all.
Extras:
Director Jon Avnet provides an audio commentary as the first of several expected items in the list of extras. He pretty much points out the obvious at every turn. Next, there's a ten-minute alternate ending, of which only the final few minutes are any different from the regular ending. Pacino gets a big speech deleted. Then there are two featurettes of a little over seven minutes each, "Director's Point of View" and "The Character Within," that examine the film from the perspective of the director and the star. I found both of them about as interesting as the movie itself, which is not saying much.
Things wind down with sixteen scene selections; bookmarks; a guide to elapsed time; a BD-Live function; previews of eight other Sony movies, along with a Blu-ray promo; English and French spoken languages and subtitles; and English captions for the hearing impaired.
Parting Shots:
Although "88 Minutes" is by no means the worst picture ever made, it is certainly among the worst pictures Al Pacino has ever made. In its defense, you might find "88 Minutes" a perfectly acceptable motion picture if you view it as something akin to a made-for-television product. Indeed, looking over the list of filmmakers, with the exception of Pacino most of them have done the bulk of their work for TV, so it's not entirely unreasonable to find their movie looking and sounding like a TV production. The film has everything in it but commercial breaks. Otherwise, it offers little in the way of originality, creativity, characterization, drama, or thrills. It's an empty and forgettable affair.
Maybe you can further understand my disappoint in "88 Minutes" when I tell you I saw it just shortly after watching all three of Pacino's "Godfather" films again. So, as of this writing we're still waiting for Al's big comeback. But, believe me, it will come. You can't keep an actor of his caliber down and out forever.
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