I've always like Al Pacino. Just about anything he does turns out to be a decent movie.

But sometimes even a great actor can't make a movie great or even make sense in the first place.

88 Minutes is not a terribly original movie that follows all the typical plot lines in a story where our hero is the suspect of whatever heinous crimes are happening. This makes the movie really predictable and rather disappointing.

The movie starts out showing someone committing a terrible crime against two sisters. One of them survives by waking up during the assault and screaming for help causing the guy to run away. Sadly her sister does not survive.

We then move to the trial of the guy accused of the crime, Jon Forster. Forster is played by Neal McDonough who I've always liked in his war movie roles. There is no explanation as to how they caught Forster nor why exactly they think he is the murderer or the serial killer they accuse him of being. The surviving sister testifies that it was him even though it seems from the scene that there was no way she could know that. Dr. Jack Gramm, a forensic psychiatrist played by Pacino, then testifies to the same effect. Years pass and we catch up with Gramm as Forster is about to be executed who has always claimed his innocence.

After some partying with his students (which is odd to begin with) he spends the night with a lady he does not know. Soon he receives the phone call that starts things in motion. He is told that he has 88 minutes to live. He is interviewed by police and a prosecutor about the murder the previous night of one of his students. The tone of the interview suggests they suspect he is involved and they have "DNA" evidence. This begins the serious issues of the movie in its story.

A thing about DNA evidence. This movie and Street Kings show how easy it would be to frame someone for a crime because of the over reliance of such evidence by investigators. Much how photos and video is so easily faked these days to be somewhat questionable as evidence, DNA will soon join that list because people will start to see how easily it is planted.

You see, we don't really know much about Gramm at this point other than he appears to be rather professional, popular and good at his job. We don't know enough of the character to judge whether he is actually capable of the murder that he is somewhat being accused of nor can we decide automatically that he didn't so we can think the lawyer is barking up the wrong tree. But considering past movies of this nature we have to automatically assume he is innocent and being framed.

But what follows is often very strange and rather hard to buy as anything approaching reality. For instance, his best friend who happens to be a FBI agent suddenly gets a case of the stupids and begins to think his long time friend is actually involved. It would have been far more interesting if his "best friend" was actually on his side throughout the entire movie without any doubts.

There's even a scene in the movie that I cannot help but think is a parody of the stupidity of this type of writing. One of his students thinks Forster actually is innocent and that Gramm fabricated evidence to get him convicted. Later in the movie the student breaks into his office and finds incriminating evidence in his desk. Gramm actually points out the stupidity of the moment by stating that he apparently just left all that evidence laying around for anybody to just find. As if he were that stupid. Obviously it was planted and only the supposedly highly intelligent psychiatrist student is dumb enough to fall for it. I bet after all the crap was over that guy was kicked out of the FORENSICS program.

But that's the issue with the plot. Suddenly only Gramm and his attractive student, that has the hots for him, who believes in his innocence are immune to the suddenly stupidity syndrome present in every single character in this movie. The only way the writing in this movie works is that the audience can somehow believe that all these people are just total idiots unable to see the most basic things practically spoon fed to them.

That lady Gramm spent the night with I mentioned before? She of course turns up dead and everything points to Gramm as the guy that killed her. And she was killed in the exact way that Forster killed his victims. Now, anybody with any level of intelligence would think frame job. And this is what got his "best friend" thinking he's running around killing people. Even though he's been shot at, his car blown up, his apartment set on fire and a student attacked by a stranger when he was not around. All this is going on showing that someone is out to get him but somehow everyone thinks he's the killer? That's just stupid.

The 88 minutes thing? The reason for the 88 minutes was interesting and did make sense. What didn't make sense is that if he were informed he would be killed in 88 minutes then why not go to his FBI buddy and ask to be hidden away for two or three hours? Most of the crap that happened in the movie would not have happened in the first place. But we get Pacino running around trying to figure out what's going on and his major obstacles are the stupid people getting in his way.

And the ending was flat and boring with no proper explanation as to the bad guy's motivation other than liking Forster for some unexplained reason.

To wrap this up, I didn't really like this movie. Usually when I don't like a movie I dissect it scene by scene saying what I liked and didn't like. I can't even get the enthusiasm to do that much for this movie. It's an ok rental I guess but there are better options.