'88 Minutes': One heck of an obscene phone call

April 18, 2008— -- Just so you know upfront: Several cellphones appear to have been injured in the making of "88 Minutes."

An inane thriller whose major fear factor hinges on a menacing phone call, the film also relies on a silly phrase intended to fill the viewer with unspeakable terror: "Tick tock, Doc."

Bugs Bunny might as well have delivered the line for all the fear it strikes.

This may be the most preposterous movie of the year. It is certainly the most ridiculous movie starring an Oscar-winning actor.

Al Pacino plays a forensic psychologist whose fame seems to rival that of Paris Hilton. Everybody -- and we mean everybody -- knows of him. And not everybody is impressed. Especially that creepy caller who gives him the hour and 28 minutes to live.

Pacino, as the rich and famous Jack Gramm, is a hard-drinking womanizer, emotionally scarred by the murder of his kid sister. His damning testimony enrages a particularly heinous serial murderer named Jon Forster (Neal McDonough), who blames his conviction and impending execution solely on Gramm's testimony. It's interesting that the killer has no wrath for the prosecutor, arresting officers or jury but is determined to wreak revenge on a psychologist.

But that's the least of the film's implausibilities. In one scene, Gramm's silver Porsche is vandalized, its windows shattered. In the next scene, the car is speeding through the streets, miraculously restored to its former pristine condition. And then there's a shifty-looking guy in a leather jacket who keeps appearing throughout the movie. Gramm asks, "Who is that guy?" But he doesn't follow up.

Did we mention that Gramm also is a psychology professor with a class full of students who engage in extracurricular crime-solving sprees of their own? These are dedicated pupils. The threatening message occurs during one of Gramm's college lectures, which is interrupted several times by ominous phone calls. Perhaps classrooms are another place where cellphones ought to be banned.