Wizard-8 Review of 80 Minutes

80 Minutes (2008)

Well, I wasn't bored... but there were a LOT of problems

[28 July 2010]

Don't worry, "80 Minutes" is neither a prequel or a sequel to the awful Al Pacino movie "88 Minutes". This low-budget effort does manage to be better than that big budget movie... but not by much. I'll start by listing the little merit this movie had. It jumps into the action right away, using an intriguing (but not totally original) setup. And at no time could I ever admit that I was bored by all of what was going on. That's what's good about this movie - now to list some of the many problems I found. To begin with, the central figure is not very sympathetic - he's stupid, irresponsible, and seems to deserve what he's getting. He and the other actors in the movie also have a wide range of accents, making us wonder just where this movie is supposed to be taking place. The movie has a constant claustrophobic feeling, with the camera constantly jammed up right next to the action or characters so that it's often hard to tell what's going on. The movie is also photographed badly, murky and dark-looking, and out of focus. Also, the DVD manufacturer gave this movie the wrong aspect ration, which results in information at the sides of the screen being cut off. The movie has an unexpected twist ending, one that seems to have been inspired by a certain Michael Douglas movie, but as soon as it happens, many unexplained questions come to mind regarding how the whole charade was pulled off. While I wouldn't call this movie as bad as what previous IMDb user commenters have claimed up to this point, I still would not recommend that you watch "80 Minutes".