Time's up on cell phone thriller '88 Minutes'

"88 Minutes" is a modern neo-noir nightmare that tries to plunge star Al Pacino into a paranoid hell of serial killers, cell phones, psychos and cyber-sleuthing.

Pacino, with commendable gusto, plays a bed-hopping star forensic psychiatrist, Jack Gramm, who, nine years ago, sent high-profile rapist-killer Jon Forster (Neal McDonough) to death row.

Now, at Forster's execution time, Gramm finds himself the target of an elaborate mind-messing and frame-up, apparently engineered by Forster and some twisted outside confederate.

Gramm learns on a cell phone he'll be dead in 88 minutes, and the movie proceeds in nearly real time from that ominous threat, through one loony trap and chase after another to its outlandish ending.

Pacino is one of the kings of neo-noir, a successor to the Cagneys, Bogarts and Mitchums as well as the Brandos, and he's the reason the movie grips your attention.

The great Godson and his fellow cast members -- including Deborah Kara Unger as Gramm's college dean, Amy Brenneman as his switch-hitting assistant, Alicia Witt as his ever-ready T.A., and Leelee Sobieski as his prize student -- pour so much emotion and conviction into "88 Minutes," they suggest cooks funneling a case of prime whiskey into a shot glass. The movie needs them.

Where the great film noirs were often based on hard-boiled literary classics, this one uses an original script from Gary Scott Thompson, the creator of "The Fast and the Furious" and "2 Fast 2 Furious" -- credits that don't exactly remind you of "Double Indemnity."

Thompson has imagined a nightmare, but he hasn't figured out how to really make it tick (or tock).

Consider: If you were a guy -- even a testosterone-soaked egomaniac like Gramm -- getting messages that you were due to die in an hour and a half, while also coming under suspicion for some copycat murders, wouldn't you at least consider going down to the police station, hiding out for 88 minutes and letting them do all the work?

Not Gramm.

He runs all over town trying to solve the mystery while avoiding the cops like the black death as corpses keep accumulating and the clock keeps ticking.

Of course, Gramm is a movie wrong man under false suspicion, but he also seems a hyper-active technology-junkie goofball.

As for killer Forster, he seems to be spending his last hours in a formidably complex plot involving multiple murders, high-publicity frameups, and TV interviews.

Equally amazing is the killer's mysterious cohort (I defy you not to guess who it is), who at one point, captures, trusses up and tortures two victims in about the time it takes to cook and eat a TV dinner.

Thompson should thank his lucky noir angels that director Jon Avnet, who is much better with more realistic scripts, got Pacino and his pals to gussy this one up.

Without the star's manic energy and grand overplaying, we'd be stuck with 88 minutes of cell phone foolery and a loco dead end.

"88 Minutes"

2 stars

Starring: Al Pacino, Alicia Witt, Leelee Sobieski, Amy Brenneman.

Directed by: Jon Avnet.

Other: A Tri-Star Pictures release. Rated R for, nudity and language. 108 minutes.