Month: April 2008

As our story starts, it’s 1997 and the place is Seattle, Washington. A man named Jon Forster has been arrested for serial killings (as the Seattle Slayer) and is being sent to jail by the damning testimony put together by FBI forensic psychologist Jack Gramm. As Forster is found guilty, he looks over to Gramm in the courtroom and mouthes the words “Tick tock, Doc.” 9 years later, on the day that Forster is to be put to death, a new crime with the same M.O. as the Settle Slayer is committed, and Jack Gramm receives a phone call telling him that he has only 88 minutes left to live, ending with the words “Tick tock, Doc.” Now Jack Gramm must put together the pieces and keep himself alive over this short, but significant to Gramm, period of time.

88 Minutes is a new thriller from director Jon Avnet starring Al Pacino in the role of Dr. Jack Gramm, and it’s premise is pretty good, but it’s execution is pretty preposterous and almost laughable in a lot of places, but for me anyway still watchable just for Al Pacino, doing the stuff that Al Pacino does best, but keep in mind, that is not a recommendation for the fim.

What it suffers from is the same thing that a lot of Hollywood thrillers suffer from today, and that’s being overly plotted to death to give out the guise of complexity, when what it boils down to is just being ridiculous and coincidental in how everything falls into place. The majority of the film runs in a bit of pseudo-real time, though there’s nothing on-screen that indicates that, you’re just reminded of it by phone calls and other means as the story unfolds. Now this isn’t a bad way to do this at all, but here it just feels that the pacing is almost casual in how stuff unfolds, and at least in my eyes, if you’re going to do something like this, things should seem just a little more frantic than how they play on-screen.

Jack Gramm, not only works for the FBI but is also a successful college professor who teaches forensic psychology, and his students are also drawn into the events on-screen. This sets up a number of the coincedences and red herrings here that really plays into the implausibility of things, and yet oddly, I still had fun with this.

And most of that fun comes with Al Pacino. Now I’m sure that many will see this and just not think this is great work from him and in more than all likelihood, 88 Minutes is Al Pacino cashing a paycheck, but he still throws himself into this, but more as Al Pacino rather than playing a real character (and maybe it’s not entirely for the paycheck either, as another movie, Righteous Kill from director Jon Avnet is coming, teaming Pacino and Robert DeNiro together again, but I digress…). And I’m a Pacino fan so for that, it’s fun for me anyway. Pacino’s backed up with some pretty good players here including Neal MacDonough as Forster, Amy Brenneman, Leelee Sobieski, Alicia Witt, Deborah Kara Unger and William Forsythe, with MacDonough being the best of the bunch, and Amy Brenneman playing the hardest working assistant ever seen on-screen (to me, her part is almost a running gag here, the moment Jack needs anything he calls here and it comes up right away). It’s a good cast overall, it just needs a better movie to be in.

Like I said, I cannot recommend this, though if you appreciate the aspects of the character that Al Pacino has become (and a lot of that is due to an incredible impression of Pacino that comedian Craig Gass has done, made popular on The Howard Stern Show), then you might have some fun with this like I did, though I’d expect that most won’t. The biggest saving grace for me anyway is that I got to see it for free, having gotten “movie money” for this in recently buying a Special Edition DVD package for an earlier and far, far better Al Pacino film, “… And Justice For All”. Unless you did what I did, I really cannot say to make the trip to a theatre to see this, just wait for a cable run of the film. Hopefully, Avnet and Pacino will score better when Righteous Kill premieres later in the year.

Thomas Ludlow is a driven police detective, having suffered his own personal tragedy, he’s now extra hard on himself and he focuses it all into his work, doing things that other cops wouldn’t do to see that justice is served. He’s effective in his ways, and though those ways could be professionally costly to him, he’s well-protected by his direct superior, Captain Jack Wander head of L.A.’s Vice Special unit. Ludlow’s methods have cost him the friendship of his former partner, Washington, who he’s found out is informing to Internal Affairs. One afternoon, Ludlow trails Washington to simply get in his face about this, but at the conveninece store where he catches up to him, it’s suddenly under attack by two masked men, viciously killing Washington in the process. Things look bad for Tom Ludlow, because of this, and though Ludlow is protected yet again by his captain, his own sense of justice won’t let him rest on this. Now, working with an independent detective named Paul Diskant, Ludlow seeks to find the real killers of his former partner, unaware of where the whole thing will lead him.

Street Kings is the second movie from director David Ayer, who previously made Harsh Time with Christian Bale and before that wrote the Antoine Fuqua film, Training Day starring Denzel Washington, so Ayer is no stranger to this sort of hard-hitting crime drama. I thought Harsh Time was decent but somewhat lacking, but think he’s more than made up for it with Street Kings which is extremely well-paced, well-acted and very driven in getting it’s point home.

While there’s elements of the film that aren’t anything new, the way Ayer has put everything together still comes together as an effective crime thriller with one terrific ending.

Ayer’s cast really carries the day here. Keanu Reeves plays Ludlow, and manages a way to keep himself both dark and also the focus of the audience’s concern. Forest Whitaker is quite good as Jack Wander, and the scenes that both have together, especially near the film’s climax are really nicely done. Chris Evans, who put himself more on the acting map with Danny Boyle’s Sunshine goes up another notch here as Diskant, and working with Reeves, they actually make a pretty good on-screen team. The rest of the cast, filled out by guys like Hugh Laurie, Jay Mohr and Cedric The Entertainer all play their parts very well. Honestly, I don’t have a single complaint about this cast in the slightest.

If you like hard-hitting cop/crime thrillers, well then Street Kings to fill that bill. Like I said above, there’s nothing overtly original here, but it’s all put together in a very entertaining way, and it certainly gets a recommendation here.