1. The plot: Forensic psychiatrist Jack Gramm gets a phone call stating that he has 88 minutes to live. Ofcourse the killer then proceeds to try and kill him every five minutes or so, defeating the purpose.
2. Since when do convicted murders, only a couple of hours away from execution, get live interviews on MSNBC? And they take phone calls like it's Larry King or something?
3. Al Pacino's hair looks as if he's been trying to break the Guiness Book of World Records for most consecutive roller coaster rides. Either that, or his hair has become it's own rorshach inkblot test.
4. They give away the killer way too early, with the token "The killer attacked me but I only got wounded" routine. At that point the movie was sunk.
5. Firemen are a laugh-a-minute in this joint. First a firetruck literally barrels through a crowd of people nearly killing as many as they had arrived to save! Then a car explodes a few feet away from them and not a single one of them tries to do anything about it.
6. The topic of Al Pacino's semen getting injected into every hot broad on campus is far too prevalent to not cause some nausea.
7. There's no real sense of urgency. With about 12 minutes left to live, Jack Gramm stops to give his 5 minute origin story about why he is who he is, and at the end I actually knew and cared less.
8. Wasted talent: Al Pacino, Alicia Witt, Leelee Sobieski, Amy Brenneman, Ben McKenzie, William Forsythe, Deborah Unger. How can so many reasonably talented actors phone in so many performances? They on the family plan or somethin'?
9. What the fuck? Cookies? There's this really odd scene in the beginning where Gramm tries to offer some FBI agents some milk and cookies. In fact, he's downright insistent on it, and it just comes off as forced and frankly a little strange. But then again, this whole movie is filled with strange, oddly disjointed scenes.
10. Even the tagline fucks it up: "He has 88 Minutes to Solve a Murder. His own!" It's not really a murder if he's around to solve it, is it?
3/10
Next up on the queue: 2008's Frozen River
