Righteous Kill was one of the biggest cinematic let-downs of 2008. Co-starring for the third and probably final time in their movie careers, Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro starred in this hackneyed, confusing, third-rate thriller that is utterly unworthy of their talents. The fact that DeNiro and Pacino have been coasting for years now is well known; DeNiro's better performances over the last decade have been in broad comedies like Meet the Parents, whilst his big directorial project, The Good Shepherd, was a washout. Pacino, meanwhile, has seen his once mighty reputation evaporate, through his involvement in junk like 88 Minutes and Gigli. That the two, whose previous collaborations were the masterpiece crime dramas The Godfather Part II (1974) and Heat (1995), should have re-teamed in an effort to score another critical and box office hit is understandable. What is not understandable is why they should have picked such a weak, contrived script; why they should saddle themselves with such unattractive, confusingly motivated characters; and why they should chose a director (Jon Avnet) who simply cannot hope to compete with Francis Ford Coppola and Michael Mann. Of course, it does not help that the film is blighted by a peculiar piece of reverse casting; As a pair of detectives tracking a vigilante serial killer, DeNiro takes the kind of part Pacino used to be able to play in his sleep (a hot-headed, self-righteous bully loaded with sexual energy), whilst Pacino plays a part more obviously suited to DeNiro (quieter and more introspective, but hiding a dark side). The actors look uneasy treading on each other's toes (DeNiro showed far more natural chemistry with Dustin Hoffman in Wag the Dog and Meet the Fockers), and Pacino in particular is certainly starting to look his age; without their usual command of the screen, the film simply plods along towards a very obvious twist finale. The always sexy Carla Gugino (Spin City, Sin City) here has a distasteful role as DeNiro's kinky colleague, and Brian Dennehy is wasted; but Donnie Wahlberg and John Leguizamo (who were impressive in the TV mini-series The Kill Point, in parts clearly modelled on the characters played by DeNiro and Pacino in Heat) are quite good as a rival pair of cops. Righteous Kill is a very bad film. It is not the worst film I've ever seen, but it is certainly one of the most disappointing, and in some ways, that is even worse. Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro, separately and together, gave us some of the greatest American films of the last few decades; that they should be reduced to flaccid pap like this in their twilight years is pretty pathetic.
Review of Righteous Kill
