80 Minutes (2008)

Just what I expected

hyped garbage

Good movie but grossly overrated

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

A quiet birthday celebration at home turns into a desperate race against the clock when a man is injected with poison and given eighty minutes to settle a lingering debt in Knockin' On Heaven's Door director Thomas Jahn's relentlessly tense white-knuckle thriller. Alex North is sitting at home and awaiting the arrival of his girlfriend Mona when an unexpected knock at the door reveals his old friend Walter, a likable restaurant owner who is inexplicably flanked by a pair of muscular thugs. When Alex failed to pay back the $15,000 he borrowed from Walter, he thought that his old friend would be a bit more understanding. But Walter wants his money back tonight, and in order to give Alex some incentive to work fast, he injects him with a time-release poison that will prove should an antidote fail to be administered within the next eighty minutes. Desperate, Alex races to his brother Vincent and gets into a serious car accident along the way. But the other people who were involved in the accident are none too pleased, and quickly give chase as Alex beats a hasty retreat to his brother's house. As Alex attempts to convince Vincent to give him the money that will save his life, he realizes that the police are hot on his trail as well. Not only that, but a vicious biker gang seems determined to track down Alex and his two buddies Floyd and Lloyd. Later, after seeing Lloyd shot dead by the leader of the gang, Alex manages to elude the pistol- packing bikers with a little help from Mona. Just as Alex begins to feel the effects of the poison that's currently coursing though his veins, he reaches Walter's restaurant prepared to pay off his debt. But Walter seems reluctant to accept Alex's payment. It's been quite a wild night for everyone involved, and before this debt is settled Walter has one last surprise for his old friend Alex. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

"80 Minutes" tells the story of Alex (Gabriel Mann) a guy who owes money to some bad guys and they want the money back as fast as possible. How they gonna make Alex give them the money if he doesn't have any? They inject a powerful poison through his veins giving to Alex life enough for 80 minutes to get the money and receive an antidote. From here you might think that the plot is going to be very predictable with a man running away the whole movie trying to get the money, trying to save his life in possible ways. And you're right! You may have seen that before in "Crank" and in the underrated thriller "DOA" (1988). There isn't so many differences between all these films except a few things that can make a great movie or a bad movie being what it is. In the case of "80 Minutes" the script comes with annoying and dumb situations, e.g. the character in the Jaguar who appears to make Alex's life something more pathetical after an traffic accident where this guy's Jaguar end up being smashed. And this guy starts to chase Alex just because of that and of course he doesn't know what's happening with the hero. He's only there to annoy the viewer and make the clock goes faster to Alex. There's also in the script some dumbfounding bad lines that are simply thrown on the screen for repetitive and funny purposes. I can't remember the scene exactly but there was moments after someone got killed during a scene and the characters kept saying "You shot him, man" or "He's dead, man!" so many times that I laughed a bit. That drags you out of the film, and you don't care about anyone there, the tension disappeared.The film was directed and edited by Thomas Jahn. In the first function he goes okay. On the second one he is awful. Excessive cuts, shaky camera, no planning at all. Everything is confusing and I thought to myself while I was watching it that I could and can do a better job with using Windows Media Player, seriously.But you may wonder why I'm giving 6 stars to this. It is a quite watchable film, with some good moments and the daring of the writer for using the same ending of David Fincher's "The Game". In the case of Fincher's film was very interesting to see, it worked very well. In the case of "80 Minutes" I felt betrayed, hated it and loved it at the same time. That doesn't mean it works. Many people will simply hate it because it was just too simple and absurd and it denies everything that just happened, kind of a silly ending.And the 6 goes for because I've seen worst things than this film (but I've seen better things too). But it's better to watch a weak film than to have worst situations in life. That's just my opinion. 6/10

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".

Incredible... how could one manage to get people to work in such a project when everything is so obviously far beyond ultra bad!? i mean I've watched a lot of bad movies, but we only finished watching this one because we couldn't believe that it was that predictable and unsatisfying pathetic. i'm really angry right now that i wasted so much of my time. by the way can somebody tell me how the hell they manage to meet each other over and over again after all the high speed chasing, especially the subjects on foot seem to catch up very easy... must have been stolen from the Red Flash. The dialogs are lame non convincing and boring. even the potheads seem like crappy actors and even i know at least 10 people who would have made a much better job here.the stripper nurse is a f celebrity from Germany most of the spoken English sounds awfully German. all you want to do is step into the movie , slap the actors and tell them to please continue and move on with the plot, if there were one. and why do Germans make movies in English anyhow ? this comment honors the move far to much because you should not even take the time to think about seeing it.