88 MINUTES (Sony/TriStar/Millennium/Equity et. al.)

Peter Marlowe · 10-16-2008, 02:03 AM

JACK GRAMM HAS EIGHTY-EIGHT MINUTES TO SOLVE A MURDER...HIS OWN.

Boy...if you weren't paranoid before watching this Jon Avnet thriller, you sure will be by the time it's over...

I know this title has gotten a ton of bad press and reviews no matter which circles you hang around in, and to be honest, after watching the Blu-ray tonight since getting it as an early holiday gift from my significant other, I must say I remember enjoying it in the theater more. Let me try and go over the plot as painlessly as I can before I get to the technical specs, because those were...well...leaving me wanting a lot more and beginning to break my beliefs in the high definition formats and delivery systems...

Al Pacino stars in what could have been an excellent thriller had it not gone off the rails and in a million directions like so many of these films do; the plot splinters into a "who dun it" structure that just gets downright silly after awhile as one suspect leads to another, then another; suffice to say, Hitchcock would be rolling over in his casket. Pacino stars as Jack Gramm, a rather famous, TV-favorite forensic psychologist in Seattle who testifies against a serial killer in court accused of brutally attacking and murdering several women. The film starts out by showing one of these murders, which turns out to be two Japanese twin sisters, and then we get little flashes of Pacino testifying against the killer. Now teaching at a university in Seattle, Pacino's character begins to get threatening cell phone calls by a distorted, computer-altered voice that warns him he only has 88 minutes to live -- and as the film goes by, so the time counts down on Pacino's life. Immediately making the connection to the killer he helped put away, Pacino enters a cat and mouse paranoia of events that gets very hectic to watch -- he suspects everyone around him is involved in this supposed plot by the killer who hired someone to threaten his life. This includes some of the sexy female students in his class who he sleeps with when he chooses (how fuckin' lucky can Pacino be?). As frames, setups and more threats unfold around him, we get the usual campy, hammy performance by William Forsythe who plays a cop trying to help Pacino solve the riddle of who keeps threatening him -- but soon even he turns on Pacino thinking he's the suspect they're looking for, killing off people around this whole mess.

At one point, Pacino thinks his assistant (Amy Brenneman, Heat) is in on it as well, then finds out that she has indeed breeched his secure files in his office which contained a recorded cassette tape with Pacino's sister's voice on it as she was getting killed years earlier by the serial killer; at this point, the plot is spiraling out of control, and that's what keeps this from being a more-than-decent film. It ends up that one of Pacino's students (Lelee Sobieski, Never Been Kissed, Joy Ride) was behind the whole thing...the threat phone calls, the copycat murders...and it turns out that she was on the serial killer's legal team somehow and was one of his "groupies" infatuated with the killer, in some way working out a method of getting the killer's execution hour overturned or stayed while setting Pacino up. It gets really hazy and confusing toward the end, which contains a build-up-the-tension scene leading to Sobieski's character confronting Pacino on the edge of one of the high floors of the university's main buildings, where she has tied up the dean of the school by ropes -- in the fashion of the real killer -- with plans of dropping the dean to her death as the final minutes of Pacino's life tick down simultaneously. Needless to say, the killer's execution doesn't get overturned, and Pacino turns the tables at the very end by saying to the killer, via cell phone, "you got 12 hours to live..." and then tossing the phone to its death by throwing it and smashing it.

VIDEO ANALYSIS:
1080p HIGH DEFINITION 2.35:1 TRANSFER

88 Minutes was actually released by TriStar -- a division of Columbia/Sony pictures I haven't seen a title from in...I don't know how many years. I didn't even know the division was still in operation, in fact. Anyway, the transfer is absolutely terrible...the film just looks terrible. Again, like You Don't Mess With The Zohan, something is wrong with the black levels -- the brightness seems to be "blown out" on this transfer too, causing noise and grain to be enhanced. Colors are muted, but I think this is more of a decision to show the rainy, dingy streets of Seattle in realistic tones. The whole transfer just looked bleak, dull and washed out; most scenes are riddled with noisy twitching in the background and I even noticed some blocky pixilation breakup in blacks at certain points -- something I never noticed with Blu-rays, only with upscaled DVDs. Very odd.

Some scenes clear up for moments here and there, and you can see the detail on Pacino's face during closeups, like with shots of his goatee, etc; but for the most part, this was a very disappointing transfer from Sony; if anyone has any additional input on what they thought about the video quality of this title, I would like to hear it.

AUDIO ANALYSIS:
ENGLISH, FRENCH DOLBY TRUEHD 5.1

I suppose the English TrueHD track on this disc was fine for the subject material; I detected no real issues with the audio, and experienced multiple instances of excellent surround usage during flashback sequences where the sound wrapped around the rear soundscape very effectively, or during outdoor car chase or on-foot chase scenes where Seattle traffic audio cues crept into the surround channels with believability. All in all, nothing wrong with the Dolby TrueHD mix on the disc.

I didn't sample any of the extra features. As I said, this was a pre-gift from my fiancé, so it's going on the shelf; she enjoyed this in theaters very much as well, but bought it for me because she thought I loved it too...I didn't really love it even initially, but I suppose this will make a decent addition to our BD collection.

But the video quality made the negatives about the confusing, spiraling plot(s) even worse; this is not a disc to use when showing off your HDTV or projector, folks...

Loves2Watch · 10-16-2008, 10:38 AM

I was not pleased with this one as well.

Mattie_B · 10-16-2008, 11:43 AM

Thanks for the review. I was tempted to pick this up but hadn't really been following the movie. I guess I'll just wait for it to make its round over to HBO and check it out then.

Peter Marlowe · 10-16-2008, 08:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Loves2Watch

I was not pleased with this one as well.

I, for some reason, remember enjoying it more theatrically...it could have been the horrible video quality of the BD though...

Peter Marlowe · 10-16-2008, 08:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mattie_B

Thanks for the review. I was tempted to pick this up but hadn't really been following the movie. I guess I'll just wait for it to make its round over to HBO and check it out then.

Hey Mattie,

Your welcome! Thank you for reading. If you haven't seen it, at least give it a rental spin; the film wasn't "bad" really by any means -- I'm just saying that I remember enjoying it more in theaters.

F91 · 10-17-2008, 11:54 PM

The ending was a train wreck. Has Al Pacino played a different character in 20 years? Doesn't seem like it.

Chris Gerhard · 10-18-2008, 04:48 AM

I liked this movie much better than most people. I rented the Blu-ray and sure won't ever watch the film again, but the plot and storytelling held my interest for that single viewing. Video quality being subpar for Blu-ray is true, but I watched the film without being annoyed because of that. I don't recall a Sony title I have seen recently that is not better, but I would hardly call this one terrible, just compared to everything else it is not good. Saying this one is terrible is sort of like saying Meg Ryan is homely because she isn't as pretty as Halle Berry or Kate Beckinsale. Well she isn't much compared to them, but compared to me, Meg is quite pretty.

I do expect near perfection with each Sony title at this point and when something isn't, that is noteworthy, so I guess I can't argue with the assessment here. I would give this one 3 of 5 stars personally, both for video and the film but I like Al Pacino and even his lesser efforts are ok by me. As usual Peter's review is very good and helpful, keep up the good work!

Chris

Chris Gerhard · 10-18-2008, 05:14 AM

I do think you should give away less of the plot with future reviews Peter. Maybe others can comment on that, but your reviews are becoming popular here and most won't want to know as much as you disclose here in my opinion.

Chris

xcitor · 10-18-2008, 07:21 AM

Yeah I agree. There is absolutly no reason to watch the movie now, not that I was going to anyway...but you get my point.

Great review still, perhaps just give a spoiler warning of some kind from now on?

Do appreciate the time, and effort!

Quentin

Peter Marlowe · 10-18-2008, 05:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chris Gerhard

I liked this movie much better than most people. I rented the Blu-ray and sure won't ever watch the film again, but the plot and storytelling held my interest for that single viewing. Video quality being subpar for Blu-ray is true, but I watched the film without being annoyed because of that. I don't recall a Sony title I have seen recently that is not better, but I would hardly call this one terrible, just compared to everything else it is not good. Saying this one is terrible is sort of like saying Meg Ryan is homely because she isn't as pretty as Halle Berry or Kate Beckinsale. Well she isn't much compared to them, but compared to me, Meg is quite pretty.

I do expect near perfection with each Sony title at this point and when something isn't, that is noteworthy, so I guess I can't argue with the assessment here. I would give this one 3 of 5 stars personally, both for video and the film but I like Al Pacino and even his lesser efforts are ok by me. As usual Peter's review is very good and helpful, keep up the good work!

Chris

Thank you Chris.

However, I do need to disagree and hold my stance that the video quality on this Sony release was awful -- at least on my setup (which I have been, admittingly, having issues with)...however, I found many other sites that agreed with the video issues I was seeing in terms of their Blu-ray reviewers:

The presentation of this Blu-ray disc isn't the most vivid or detailed I've seen, but the lack of total clarity seemed to fit perfectly with the rainy atmosphere of the film's location.

Sony offers '88 Minutes' as a 1080p/AVC MPEG-4 encode (2.40:1). I found the image weirdly unpleasant, with a washed-out appearance and a just plain ugly, tweaked out color palette.

Noticeable from the very start are the weak black levels. They are oddly grayed out, with contrast too bright on the lower end of the grayscale and a lack of bright whites. The image far from pops, and looks lethargic. Hues, while deeply saturated, can't overcome the poor blacks, so everything has an ugly, colorless cast. Fleshtones certainly don't benefit much either, with everyone's skin looking rather hideous.

Overall visible detail is merely average for a high-def presentation. Daylight scenes fair a bit better here, but even they lack anywhere near the three-dimensional quality of a first-rate Blu-ray. '88 Minutes' is watchable, but just barely.

The Sony transfer engineers use a MPEG-4/AVC codec and a dual-layer BD50 to get the most out of the 2.35:1 ratio picture, which apparently wasn't enough to compensate for the original print's lack of robust hues. The director intentionally keeps the color palette subdued, meaning he probably wanted to imbue the story with a dark, grim, iron-grey tone and chose colors to match, with contrast levels equally heavy at times, making whites and blacks stand out even more. Then, when the picture is not so bright or glossy, it looks slightly dull and veiled. A mixed bag.

Peter Marlowe · 10-18-2008, 05:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chris Gerhard

I do think you should give away less of the plot with future reviews Peter. Maybe others can comment on that, but your reviews are becoming popular here and most won't want to know as much as you disclose here in my opinion.

Chris

Absolutely agreed; I was actually getting ready to begin an opinion poll on this before you posted! I will definitely do less plot spoilers -- thanks for the suggestion.

Peter Marlowe · 10-18-2008, 05:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by xcitor

Yeah I agree. There is absolutly no reason to watch the movie now, not that I was going to anyway...but you get my point.

Great review still, perhaps just give a spoiler warning of some kind from now on?

Do appreciate the time, and effort!

Quentin

Thanks so much Quentin...I will definitely do that from now on.

Sorry for all the plot spoilers, guys; the reviews will be different from here on in!

Peter Marlowe · 10-19-2008, 05:16 PM

Just wanted to add to this review because it wouldn't let me edit the original post...

WARNING! PLOT SPOILERS HERE!

xcitor · 10-19-2008, 06:21 PM

HAHA niccccceeeeeee...................

Peter Marlowe · 10-19-2008, 06:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by xcitor

HAHA niccccceeeeeee...................

I actually, seriously wasn't trying to be funny or sarcastic; I really did mean to have this plot spoiler warning at the top of the review, but for some reason, I couldn't access the edit function.

But I was serious about giving folks the heads up that there are plot spoilers to be found here, and I will be much more careful in the future.

10-16-2008, 02:03 AM	#1
Peter Marlowe Resident BD/DVD Reviewer Join Date: Jun 2008 Posts: 2,523	88 MINUTES (Sony/TriStar/Millennium/Equity et. al.) *JACK GRAMM HAS EIGHTY-EIGHT MINUTES TO SOLVE A MURDER...HIS OWN.* Boy...if you weren't paranoid before watching this Jon Avnet thriller, you sure will be by the time it's over... I know this title has gotten a ton of bad press and reviews no matter which circles you hang around in, and to be honest, after watching the Blu-ray tonight since getting it as an early holiday gift from my significant other, I must say I remember enjoying it in the theater more. Let me try and go over the plot as painlessly as I can before I get to the technical specs, because those were...well...leaving me wanting a lot more and beginning to break my beliefs in the high definition formats and delivery systems... Al Pacino stars in what could have been an excellent thriller had it not gone off the rails and in a million directions like so many of these films do; the plot splinters into a "who dun it" structure that just gets downright silly after awhile as one suspect leads to another, then another; suffice to say, Hitchcock would be rolling over in his casket. Pacino stars as Jack Gramm, a rather famous, TV-favorite forensic psychologist in Seattle who testifies against a serial killer in court accused of brutally attacking and murdering several women. The film starts out by showing one of these murders, which turns out to be two Japanese twin sisters, and then we get little flashes of Pacino testifying against the killer. Now teaching at a university in Seattle, Pacino's character begins to get threatening cell phone calls by a distorted, computer-altered voice that warns him he only has 88 minutes to live -- and as the film goes by, so the time counts down on Pacino's life. Immediately making the connection to the killer he helped put away, Pacino enters a cat and mouse paranoia of events that gets very hectic to watch -- he suspects everyone around him is involved in this supposed plot by the killer who hired someone to threaten his life. This includes some of the sexy female students in his class who he sleeps with when he chooses (how fuckin' lucky can Pacino be?). As frames, setups and more threats unfold around him, we get the usual campy, hammy performance by William Forsythe who plays a cop trying to help Pacino solve the riddle of who keeps threatening him -- but soon even he turns on Pacino thinking he's the suspect they're looking for, killing off people around this whole mess. At one point, Pacino thinks his assistant (Amy Brenneman, Heat) is in on it as well, then finds out that she has indeed breeched his secure files in his office which contained a recorded cassette tape with Pacino's sister's voice on it as she was getting killed years earlier by the serial killer; at this point, the plot is spiraling out of control, and that's what keeps this from being a more-than-decent film. It ends up that one of Pacino's students (Lelee Sobieski, Never Been Kissed, Joy Ride) was behind the whole thing...the threat phone calls, the copycat murders...and it turns out that she was on the serial killer's legal team somehow and was one of his "groupies" infatuated with the killer, in some way working out a method of getting the killer's execution hour overturned or stayed while setting Pacino up. It gets really hazy and confusing toward the end, which contains a build-up-the-tension scene leading to Sobieski's character confronting Pacino on the edge of one of the high floors of the university's main buildings, where she has tied up the dean of the school by ropes -- in the fashion of the real killer -- with plans of dropping the dean to her death as the final minutes of Pacino's life tick down simultaneously. Needless to say, the killer's execution doesn't get overturned, and Pacino turns the tables at the very end by saying to the killer, via cell phone, "you got 12 hours to live..." and then tossing the phone to its death by throwing it and smashing it. *VIDEO ANALYSIS:* 1080p HIGH DEFINITION 2.35:1 TRANSFER 88 Minutes was actually released by TriStar -- a division of Columbia/Sony pictures I haven't seen a title from in...I don't know how many years. I didn't even know the division was still in operation, in fact. Anyway, the transfer is absolutely terrible...the film just looks terrible. Again, like You Don't Mess With The Zohan, something is wrong with the black levels -- the brightness seems to be "blown out" on this transfer too, causing noise and grain to be enhanced. Colors are muted, but I think this is more of a decision to show the rainy, dingy streets of Seattle in realistic tones. The whole transfer just looked bleak, dull and washed out; most scenes are riddled with noisy twitching in the background and I even noticed some blocky pixilation breakup in blacks at certain points -- something I never noticed with Blu-rays, only with upscaled DVDs. Very odd. Some scenes clear up for moments here and there, and you can see the detail on Pacino's face during closeups, like with shots of his goatee, etc; but for the most part, this was a very disappointing transfer from Sony; if anyone has any additional input on what they thought about the video quality of this title, I would like to hear it. *AUDIO ANALYSIS:* ENGLISH, FRENCH DOLBY TRUEHD 5.1 I suppose the English TrueHD track on this disc was fine for the subject material; I detected no real issues with the audio, and experienced multiple instances of excellent surround usage during flashback sequences where the sound wrapped around the rear soundscape very effectively, or during outdoor car chase or on-foot chase scenes where Seattle traffic audio cues crept into the surround channels with believability. All in all, nothing wrong with the Dolby TrueHD mix on the disc. I didn't sample any of the extra features. As I said, this was a pre-gift from my fiancé, so it's going on the shelf; she enjoyed this in theaters very much as well, but bought it for me because she thought I loved it too...I didn't really love it even initially, but I suppose this will make a decent addition to our BD collection. But the video quality made the negatives about the confusing, spiraling plot(s) even worse; this is not a disc to use when showing off your HDTV or projector, folks... __________________ THEATER: ONKYO TX-SR605(B) OPPO BDP-83 SONY KDS-50A2020 SXRD Mains: polkaudio RTi12 Center: polkaudio CSi30 Surrounds: SpeakerCraft Preinstalled In-Ceiling Sub: polkaudio PSW350 APC SurgeArrest System *"THE LOFT" (2-CHANNEL/RECORDING):* ONKYO TX-8555(B) polkaudio R20 Stands by Sanus Systems' Natural Foundations marantz CC4001 TASCAM CD-RW900SL Professional Technics SL-1200MK2 (wish list) Numark CD MIX-1 Bell'O Audio Tower *LAST REVIEW:*

10-16-2008, 10:38 AM	#2
Loves2Watch Natures Beauty Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Evermore Posts: 18,432	I was not pleased with this one as well. __________________ Friends don't let friends buy Korean brand TV's or Blu-ray players. Main HT Room TV, Projector, Receiver, Speakers, Blu-ray player, HD DVD player, Dish Network HD DVR, 300 Disc CD Changer and so on.

10-16-2008, 11:43 AM	#3
Mattie_B High Definition is the definition of life. Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: State College, PA Age: 26 Posts: 898	Thanks for the review. I was tempted to pick this up but hadn't really been following the movie. I guess I'll just wait for it to make its round over to HBO and check it out then. __________________ 42" Toshiba Regza 1080P-Logitech Z-5500 PS3 40GB - PSN AbsynthHaze - 360 ~ 60GB Live AbsynthHaze 46

10-17-2008, 11:54 PM	#6
F91 Plasmatic Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Port Orchard, WA Posts: 2,782	The ending was a train wreck. Has Al Pacino played a different character in 20 years? Doesn't seem like it. __________________ "you give me a water board, Dick Cheney and one hour, and I'll have him confess to the Sharon Tate murders." Jesse Ventura Proud to be living in a hatt free zone.

10-18-2008, 07:21 AM	#9
xcitor F'IN CAMPERS!!!!! Join Date: Feb 2005 Age: 26 Posts: 489	Yeah I agree. There is absolutly no reason to watch the movie now, not that I was going to anyway...but you get my point. Great review still, perhaps just give a spoiler warning of some kind from now on? Do appreciate the time, and effort! Quentin __________________ 50" Pioneer Kuro PDP-5020FD Onkyo TX-SR805 PS3 Slim w/ 320GB HDD Fronts: Mirage OMNI 550 Center: Mirage OMNI C150 Surrounds: Mirage OMNI 150 Rear Surrounds: Mirage OMNI 150 Subwoofer: Infinity PS-212 Monster Cable Surge Protector HTPC: Case: SiverStone LC13-E Motherboard: Asus P5E CPU: Intel Q6600 @ 3.2 Memory: 6 GB A-Data 6400 @ 800 1:1 HDD: WD 640 GB Video: Sapphire 4890 @ 950/1000 Power: PC P&C 750 Silencer PSN: xombekiller PS3: 53 : 250 Last edited by xcitor; 10-18-2008 at 10:24 AM. Reason: Not enough coffee yet

10-18-2008, 04:48 AM	#7
Chris Gerhard High Definition is the definition of life. Join Date: Nov 2005 Posts: 9,448	I liked this movie much better than most people. I rented the Blu-ray and sure won't ever watch the film again, but the plot and storytelling held my interest for that single viewing. Video quality being subpar for Blu-ray is true, but I watched the film without being annoyed because of that. I don't recall a Sony title I have seen recently that is not better, but I would hardly call this one terrible, just compared to everything else it is not good. Saying this one is terrible is sort of like saying Meg Ryan is homely because she isn't as pretty as Halle Berry or Kate Beckinsale. Well she isn't much compared to them, but compared to me, Meg is quite pretty. I do expect near perfection with each Sony title at this point and when something isn't, that is noteworthy, so I guess I can't argue with the assessment here. I would give this one 3 of 5 stars personally, both for video and the film but I like Al Pacino and even his lesser efforts are ok by me. As usual Peter's review is very good and helpful, keep up the good work! Chris

10-18-2008, 05:14 AM	#8
Chris Gerhard High Definition is the definition of life. Join Date: Nov 2005 Posts: 9,448	I do think you should give away less of the plot with future reviews Peter. Maybe others can comment on that, but your reviews are becoming popular here and most won't want to know as much as you disclose here in my opinion. Chris

10-19-2008, 05:16 PM	#13
Peter Marlowe Resident BD/DVD Reviewer Join Date: Jun 2008 Posts: 2,523	Just wanted to add to this review because it wouldn't let me edit the original post... *WARNING! PLOT SPOILERS HERE!* __________________ THEATER: ONKYO TX-SR605(B) OPPO BDP-83 SONY KDS-50A2020 SXRD Mains: polkaudio RTi12 Center: polkaudio CSi30 Surrounds: SpeakerCraft Preinstalled In-Ceiling Sub: polkaudio PSW350 APC SurgeArrest System *"THE LOFT" (2-CHANNEL/RECORDING):* ONKYO TX-8555(B) polkaudio R20 Stands by Sanus Systems' Natural Foundations marantz CC4001 TASCAM CD-RW900SL Professional Technics SL-1200MK2 (wish list) Numark CD MIX-1 Bell'O Audio Tower *LAST REVIEW:*

10-19-2008, 06:21 PM	#14
xcitor F'IN CAMPERS!!!!! Join Date: Feb 2005 Age: 26 Posts: 489	HAHA niccccceeeeeee................... __________________ 50" Pioneer Kuro PDP-5020FD Onkyo TX-SR805 PS3 Slim w/ 320GB HDD Fronts: Mirage OMNI 550 Center: Mirage OMNI C150 Surrounds: Mirage OMNI 150 Rear Surrounds: Mirage OMNI 150 Subwoofer: Infinity PS-212 Monster Cable Surge Protector HTPC: Case: SiverStone LC13-E Motherboard: Asus P5E CPU: Intel Q6600 @ 3.2 Memory: 6 GB A-Data 6400 @ 800 1:1 HDD: WD 640 GB Video: Sapphire 4890 @ 950/1000 Power: PC P&C 750 Silencer PSN: xombekiller PS3: 53 : 250

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