Righteous Kill Review

Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro team up to finally make a movie together. In Godfather Part II they did not have any scenes together and in Heat they only had 1 scene together. So what's better than to put them together in a buddy cop movie with some twists and turns and a celeb supporting cast? On paper this movie sounds like a winner. I really wanted to go into this film and see a 2008 version of Heat. After reading other reviews, I considerably lowered my expectations. It's safe to say Righteous Kill won't be remembered as a classic, but its certainly a watchable and engaging film that shows off just why we fell in love with Pacino/DeNiro in the first place.

It's hard to review a film like this without giving away any spoilers. DeNiro plays Turk, a good cop who is becoming disenfranchised with the bad guys seemingly getting off scott free when they are clearly guilty. Pacino plays his partner Rooster, a wise cracking free wheeling cop who you can't really tell if he wanted to get in the profession to do good or just to be able to play with a gun. The two older cops are trying to hold their own against a young team of Perez (John Leguizamo) and Riley (Donnie Wahlberg). The four men get themselves intertwined into following a case of a serial killer who murders his victims and then leaves a 4 line poem at every scene. He is a vigilante who is on his own mission to clean up the scum of the city and its up to the the two teams of detectives to hunt him down.

After much in fighting and squabbling, the guys figure out that only a cop would have the skill to pull off these murders. This leads to spending the second half of the movie trying to figure out which one of them is the dirty cop. Carla Gugino (Night at the Museum, Sin City, Entourage) is also in this movie as a crime scene investigator who has a very naughty relationship with DeNiro's character. Let's just say she is very much into pretend rape. Her character does nothing to further the story and she really just comes off as a sicko whore. 50 Cent (Curtis Jackson) has a larger role in this than he should ever have. Fortunately he doesn't do anything to totally derail the movie.

The pacing of this movie was quite off. Mainly because of a horrible director in Jon Avnet who only has a few directing roles to his credit, his last being the critically panned Pacino movie 88 Minutes. You can tell he has big ambitions with the story but the inexperience to pull any of it off in a way that makes sense. DeNiro and Pacino are the only saving grace of the movie, especially in its climax as they both revert into their classic persona's making for some highly enjoyable dialog. The movie tends to stall out in the beginning but does pick up steam and turns itself into a slightly above average version of your typical crime flick. I think it's sad to say both actors are showing their age with lots of slow movements and dragged out speeches. I don't know if we will ever see a Serpico or Goodfellas type performance from these guys ever again. I wouldn't recommend paying full price, but this movie does provide a nice feeling of nostalgia and a good escape on a rain day or watching it late night on cable.

6.5/10