I've had this movie since May '07. "But how can that be?" you might be asking yourself, "It doesn't come out in theaters until next Friday." My answer: I have ways, man. WAYS.
Also I have the internet, which comprises approximately 100% of my "ways."
As it turns out, 88 Minutes has a long history. It was made in 2005, slotted for a 2006 release, then shelved and scheduled for a 2007 direct-to-DVD release. When the threat of the writers' strike became evident, Sony decided to hold off on the DVD release, in case it had to do a theatrical release to fill in the product void a writers' strike would create. The strike did happen, the void exists, and 88 Minutes hits theaters next Friday.
I watched this movie less out of an interest in the plot (the trailers made it look like a run-of-the-mill thriller), but because the cast appealed to me. Al Pacino, Leelee Sobieski, Alicia Witt, Amy Brenneman, Debora Kara-Unger, William Forsythe, Neal McDonough, and Battlestar Galactica's Leah Cairns (I have a crush).
Sweet crap 88 Minutes is awful. Maybe not Uwe Boll-awful, but certainly Reindeer Games-awful. Pacino appears to be talking while asleep, Alicia Witt seems to either be mixing uppers and downers or is bi-polar, Leelee Sobieski appears to have shot her scenes out of sequence over a 3-year period where she was slowly gaining weight, and William Forsythe (who is one of cinema's all-time-great heavies) is taking the same nap as Pacino. Brenneman doesn't totally embarrass herself, but isn't memorable. Deborah Kara-Unger has all of 3 minutes onscreen, and can't screw up too badly because she has nothing to screw up. Neal McDonough is always good, and is the standout here. And the highlight of the entire film is Leah Cairn's sweet, sweet ass. Said ass gets about a minute of screentime in the beginning, and the film goes downhill from there.
And the plot? Al Pacino gets a cell phone call from someone who tells him he has 88 minutes to live. Paranoia and murder ensues. The film throws in so many obvious thriller cliches that it actually does become hard to spot the eventual twist. This happens not because of style, but because the movie is so filled with cliches that up until the final reveal, the writer could literally just pick any character out of the bunch to be the killer and have a complete motive and backstory. I watched it with my wife, and I was constantly calling out what I thought the outcome will be. With about 15 minutes left in the movie, I paused it and laid out at least 5 wildly different scenarios that could be the eventual twist. It's bad enough when one ending is predictable, but when I can watch a movie and know every single way the plot could possibly go, that's just terrible, terrible filmmaking.
And what's worse is that the director of this film, Jon Avnet, is also the director of the upcoming thriller Righteous Kill, which will reunite Al Pacino with Robert De Niro. Pacino and De Niro finally together again, in a film from the creator of 88 Minutes. What a terrible world we live in.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Monday, April 07, 2008
Lazy Reviews
Things I've Watched Recently:
Cloverfield
This would have been a fine sci-fi thriller if not for that gimmicky shaky-cam crap. The shaky-cam style should be used to add a sense of rawness or urgency, not complete and utter confusion. Yeah, I know, the characters were confused and so we're supposed to see them being confused. But after 20 minutes, it wears out its welcome and becomes annoying. It also would have helped if the movie weren't populated by idiots. "Hey, the giant monster is right in front of us! I know, I'll turn around and film my friends' reaction to the monster instead of the monster itself! I'm brilliant!"
Rambo 4 (aka John Rambo or Rambo, depending on which country you're in)
Not terrible. I guess. It held my attention, even if I was rolling my eyes half of the time. The action was way overdone, but as repetitive as it was, I never actually got tired of seeing people get hit by .50-caliber rounds. But Richard Crenna was dearly missed.
The Beast (aka The Beast of War)
I'd always heard that this 1988 film was an overlooked classic, so I finally got around to watching it. I wouldn't go so far as to call it a classic, but it was a damn fine movie. It focuses on a lost Soviet tank during the war between Russia and Afghanistan. The tank and its crew have just wiped out an innocent civilian village, and are being pursued by a group of Afghan rebels bent on revenge. The tank's commander (character actor George Dzundza, in the best role of his career) is slowly losing his mind, while the crew (including a young Jason Patric and very young Stephen Baldwin) begin to have a crisis of conscience. The tank scenes play like excerpts from Das Boot, though inside a different vehicle of war. There are major flaws (no actor even attempts a Russian accent), but they are easily ignored in favor of plot momentum. The movie is basically one long chase, and the tension is kept high at all times. I highly recommend this to anyone with a Netflix subscription.
The Mist
Ridiculous ending aside, I loved it. But I also loved the novella, and the film doesn't stray very far from the source material (apart from the the previously mentioned ending). I think Richard Roeper described it best when he called it "...one of the best B-movies of 2007, and I mean that in a good way." It relies on atmosphere instead of jump-scares, and focuses as much on the dark side of human nature as it does on the monsters. Just remember to stop the movie as soon as the main characters pull away in the Land Cruiser. Just pretend they drive off into the mist and the credits roll.
Cloverfield
This would have been a fine sci-fi thriller if not for that gimmicky shaky-cam crap. The shaky-cam style should be used to add a sense of rawness or urgency, not complete and utter confusion. Yeah, I know, the characters were confused and so we're supposed to see them being confused. But after 20 minutes, it wears out its welcome and becomes annoying. It also would have helped if the movie weren't populated by idiots. "Hey, the giant monster is right in front of us! I know, I'll turn around and film my friends' reaction to the monster instead of the monster itself! I'm brilliant!"
Rambo 4 (aka John Rambo or Rambo, depending on which country you're in)
Not terrible. I guess. It held my attention, even if I was rolling my eyes half of the time. The action was way overdone, but as repetitive as it was, I never actually got tired of seeing people get hit by .50-caliber rounds. But Richard Crenna was dearly missed.
The Beast (aka The Beast of War)
I'd always heard that this 1988 film was an overlooked classic, so I finally got around to watching it. I wouldn't go so far as to call it a classic, but it was a damn fine movie. It focuses on a lost Soviet tank during the war between Russia and Afghanistan. The tank and its crew have just wiped out an innocent civilian village, and are being pursued by a group of Afghan rebels bent on revenge. The tank's commander (character actor George Dzundza, in the best role of his career) is slowly losing his mind, while the crew (including a young Jason Patric and very young Stephen Baldwin) begin to have a crisis of conscience. The tank scenes play like excerpts from Das Boot, though inside a different vehicle of war. There are major flaws (no actor even attempts a Russian accent), but they are easily ignored in favor of plot momentum. The movie is basically one long chase, and the tension is kept high at all times. I highly recommend this to anyone with a Netflix subscription.
The Mist
Ridiculous ending aside, I loved it. But I also loved the novella, and the film doesn't stray very far from the source material (apart from the the previously mentioned ending). I think Richard Roeper described it best when he called it "...one of the best B-movies of 2007, and I mean that in a good way." It relies on atmosphere instead of jump-scares, and focuses as much on the dark side of human nature as it does on the monsters. Just remember to stop the movie as soon as the main characters pull away in the Land Cruiser. Just pretend they drive off into the mist and the credits roll.
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