88 Minutes

Rented this because I'm a big Al Pacino fan, even though I'd heard it was bad. I'd heard right.

I have never in my life seen such a badly made film. The first thing you notice is that the dialogue is absolutely dreadful.

AL: "It's not a bomb."
STUDENT WITH A CRUSH WHO'S YOUNG ENOUGH TO BE HIS DAUGHTER: "That's good."
AL: ( after a smell-the-fart-acting dramatic pause): Yeah.

The next thing you notice is that criminology lecturer Al's relationship with his students is decidedly odd. They hero-worship him, despite the fact that he's arrogant and borderline sleazy. At first you think it might be some kind of interesting characterisation and that he's going to turn out to be some kind of maverick genius. But no.

So, he's receiving death threats from a killer that he's put away and that (we've already established) he still considers to be dangerous, whilst continuing with his lecture and making no effort to report it. As things unfold, it becomes clear that we're supposed to believe two things: 1) that the psycho has people working on the outside in a fiendish and massively complicated ploy to totally discredit him and 2) despite all the effort that's gone into this and to the 88-minutes-to-live countdown, the psycho is quite prepared to attempt to murder him along the way by running him down/blowing him up/burning down his apartment/shooting him if the film needs a bit of tension injected. Which frankly it does, because it's directed in such a way as to make you feel that you've got ADD. Flashbacks are pointlessly overused throughout, and the director doesn't concentrate on any one thread for long enough for you to care about it.

Far from coming across as some kind of genius, the doctor is basically yanked along at the end of a string, making ridiculously bad calls at every turn and yet somehow inspiring trust and devotion in everyone. Al gets stopped by a police colleague who has been presented as part of the set-up with seemingly watertight evidence that Al's actually the killer. (Two women, raped and murdered, forensics have found Al's semen at both crime scenes). Al persuades him to give him ten minutes to prove his innocence. What kind of moron cop is this? Mind you, none of the professionals seem that professional. His devoted assistant shags a student in the restricted office, one of his criminology students has a girlie fit of hysterics when she sees a body (allowing Al to comfort her) and Al himself, with his years of experience and amazing reputation, doesn't EVER answer any questions about what's going on when asked by people trying to assist him, and instead phones up a TV channel to wind up the killer, only to get owned in the face with stories of massive monumental errors of judgement that he has made in the past that he can't deny.

Worth a watch with a friend if you want to entertain yourselves with just how bad a film can be.