MARKED MOVIES

Director: Jon Avnet.
Screenplay: Gary Scott Thompson.
Starring: Al Pacino, Alicia Witt, Leelee Sobieski, Amy Brenneman, William Forsythe, Ben McKenzie, Deborah Kara Unger, Neal McDonogh, Stephen Moyer, Victoria Tennant.

Director Jon Avnet released this film with Al Pacino just before “Righteous Kill” in 2007, where he reteamed Al with Robert DeNiro. If you have seen the disaster that that film turned out to be, then you pretty much get the idea where this one is headed. In fact, if I were DeNiro I’d be pretty peeved that Al never mentioned a word about working with Avnet – a director of such stinking magnitude.

Dr. Jack Gramm (Pacino) is a professor of criminal psychology who has also helped the police with the conviction of a serial killer, awaiting execution. It transpires though, that the good Doctor may have got things wrong in his findings and it’s also at this time that he recieves an anonymous phone call informing him that he has 88 minutes to live.

Some feeble attempts at tension and plotting then ensue, with Al probably spending more than 88 minutes to blow-dry his ever increasing hairstyle.
I can’t believe I am wasting my time even commenting on this film. It has already stolen more than enough from me. I do this as a warning to all. This is unequivocally the worst Pacino film I have ever seen – and his worst performance. He spends a lot of the film on the phone and on second thoughts, he could have probably phoned in a better performance rather than wasting his (and our) time turning up.

Never mind minutes, 88 Seconds is too long for this piece of garbage.

Mark Walker

This entry was posted on January 17, 2012 at 9:43 am and is filed under Mystery, thriller with tags 2007. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.