Another poor film choice for Pacino

Director: Jon Avnet

Cast: Al Pacino, Amy Brennerman, Alicia Witt, Neal McDonough, Benjamin McKenzie

Cert: 16

88 minutes is about as long as you’ll want to watch this massively disappointing thriller, one not even saved by having Pacino in a leading role.

He plays Jack Gramm, a Seattle forensic phychiatrist and college professor whose evidence against a serial killer, Jon Forster (McDonough), is considered flawed and dishonestly twisted – with the added suggestion that he nobbled some witnesses to bolster his theories.

On the eve of Forster’s execution, Gramm gets a chilling message: he has 88 minutes to live. Thus, he is plunged into a frantic race against time to find answers, a race during which he has to confront his past and some very strange people.

Overlook for the moment that no director should ask Pacino to race anywhere, frantically or otherwise, no agent with a heart should have got him a role in such a mess of a film.

A more badly-plotted, indifferently-directed and half-heartedly performed film will not come our way this year, which is a shame since it chalks up two-in-a-row disappointments for Pacino fans after 'Righteous Kill' (from the same director).

Pacino seems to have grasped the futility of making something worthwhile out of the film early on and it is a feeling that clearly spreads to his fellow thesps … '88 minutes' is, on reflection, too long to devote to so poor a film.

Star Rating: 1/5