88

Two thing's come to mind with the movie '88'. Quentin Tarantino and 'Memento'. Director April Mullen has done her best to show us what it would have been like if Tarantino had made 'Memento', instead of Christopher Nolan. The result? Not all that bad. The film doesn't reach the intellectual capacities of 'Memento', but focuses more on the style. And while it doesn't come off in every scene, the overall result is pretty good.

The interweaving time lines are handled well. Thing's can get very confusing in these types of films but Mullen does a good job of keeping things easy enough to follow along with. Katharine Isabelle was excellent in the lead role, particularly in the flashback storyline. The rest of the cast were admittedly not great (Ironside and Lloyd were passable) but that is forgivable in a low-budget film like this. While the film never reaches anywhere near the potential a Tarantino or Nolan is capable of, it still isn't half bad. Worth giving a chance.

Every once in awhile you see a movie and get surprised at least I do. Nowadays anyone with half a brain can see a bad movie coming..... This movie had me thinking B - Grade movie. Names were not to familiar to me. Katherine Isabelle was awesome and surprised the heck out of me. Yes, it was a little bit to much to follow , here , there , this time , that time but I settled in.........on the performance of Katherine. I would say it is a must see over a lot of movies with higher billing and more famous stars. The 10 lines.........agh. Cool movie , surprisingly good actress carrying the entire movie with ease. Katherine Isabelle is stunning in more ways than one in this performance hope to see her do more.

88 starts with our main character lost and confused in a diner, and through multiple story threads we find out how she got there and where she is going. That's all I want to say about the story, because the less you know the more I think you'll enjoy the movie.

I thought 88 had a very "Memento-ish" feel to it, in that by design the viewer is very disoriented and along the way you gather information along with the main character until the inevitable "aha" moment and climax. I thought the pacing was great, the actors did a terrific job, and while I have no idea what the budget was for 88 it felt like a major feature film.

Speaking of the actors, Katherine Isabelle OWNS this movie. I want to go back and re-watch, but if I'm not mistaken she is in essentially every scene in the movie. Plain and simple, 88 doesn't work if she doesn't nail her role(s), and she plays it to perfection.

Bottom line, 88 isn't The Godfather or Apocalypse Now, it's not going to win any Oscars or make billions of dollars. But if you're looking for an exciting movie with several WTF moments and a great performance from an under-appreciated star I strongly recommend it.

OK, so this is maybe a 6, but I saw it at Glasgow Frightfest, and that makes an impact in itself, maybe I'll downgrade it to a 6, but maybe it is a 7! Who knows? I should, right? Anyway!

Going to try not to spoil anything here, and I will be brief.

I liked Katharine Isabelle in this one. She is cool, weird and not to shabby-looking either. Hard to put this in one genre, it's rather violent, got some drama, some action, some humor, and a little mystery to it too. But I liked it. It was entertaining, and again Katharine Isabelle is the real star here. She is fun to watch. She may slightly overdo her "I'm-so-incredibly-cool"-thing a little at times, or it might just be me. And if it's not me, I think it's the director and/or screenwriters fault.

Anyhow, entertaining little flick.

Actual rating 3.3/10 mainly due to the ability of cast: Katherine Isabelle, Christopher Lloyd, Michael Ironsides and a special mention to director April Mullen.

First, the movie is a cliché of the Hollywood (Canadawood) B cinema of girl goes gun crazy for revenge. Exploitation films usually run it after a rape or family violence but in this case it's boyfriend revenge. At least so we think. So it draws comparison with the superior Kill Bill. But it lacks the style and coordination of Kill Bill. In many ways, it tries to be Memento, also another superior film, but it is far more disjointed with too many cuts, parallel time(?!) and flashbacks which only makes the film confusing and nonsensical.

It's also disjointed in its treatment of its own title 88. The first 20-30 minutes it does build on it. So there's some interest. And someone pointed out 88 has a significance with Christopher Nolan's Back to the Future. Which adds to the interest. But somewhere in the middle, the film is confused and forgets about its own title. So why 88? It actually means very little after a bit of number play in the first 20 minutes.

It's like if you ever meet someone or have a friend who's had a drug or mental issue. Someone who experiments on drugs. They never make sense. And the experiment goes bad. I'm not sure how other reviewers give it a higher rating (or how did it get a 4.5/10 here, which tells you, it definitely can't be a good film). But keep in mind, often lesser films on IMDb get high ratings due to the limited reviewers being probably connected to the film (e.g, friends, employees) or strong fans. After a few hundred reviews or with time and loss of enthusiasm, it often goes down in ratings. (So why do I review it? I like reviewing both good and bad films. No real reason in particular but if I have time and the film strikes me in a way, in this case, Isabelle, Nolan and how they can be in a poor film).

Our heroine Katherine Isabelle plays Gwen, Gwenny or Flamingo. That is, yes, she doesn't have a clear identity or fugue state as the movie opens. One thing is for the main character to have a fugue state but the whole film is a fugue state. A woman who kills several people accidentally or intentionally? Are we supposed to sympathize with our character? Trying to draw into the character and making the film imitate the character doesn't accomplish much. Imagine The Hobbit being a short film on a small screen because the main characters are dwarfs and hobbits. And the men in this movie either get killed, kill themselves or die trying to protect her. It seems she had a violent past int he end but she never showed on police records although her associates (e.g, Cyrus) did. I'm not sure why what's so special about her, that people try to protect her.

Basically the film is trash like the sets as someone inquired where was this film so badly shot? It's like trash like its trashy characters. I almost never say that for any film but it's a rare film, maybe a 1 in 40 or 50 films. Yes, that bad but not the worst. 90% of my films I rate are 4/10 and above on IMDb. Nothing special about directing (rather poor), screenplay, cinematography, all substandard.

Just hardly worth watching, except for the somewhat good, curious casting: Christopher Nolan emerges from his Back to the Future to play a aged hood, Michael Ironsides always plays the cliché cop (or villain), and Katharine Isabelle gives a very good performance. She was terrific in American Mary, which is an underrated film on IMDb at 6.3. I would give it more a 7.0/10 if you can stand the gore and appreciate the originality. 88 tries to emulate that originality of character but falls very short. Special mention to April Mullen who plays Lemmy, a far more interesting character than as the director of this movie. It's a short cameo role as the gun dealer Lemmy who has a bizarre but funny flip sign in her abode/store. Probably the best moment of the film.

Without the cast, it would be a 2 or 2.5/10 or bottom 1 out of every 200-300 films. Just really, really bad without the main characters. But you may want to tolerate this film if you have nothing else to do but see what Katherine Isabelle or Christopher Nolan can do. But I think they themselves would rather not see this film on their own resume. It is that forgettable and straight to netflix.