(Long Island, NY) Righteous Kill got a lot of pre-release hype due to the clandestine paring of two acting icons- Robert De Niro (Goodfellas, Raging Bull) and Al Pacino (The Godfather, Scarface). Both men have achieved much in their careers and actually specialize in similar roles, so it’s actually surprising that they haven’t worked together more often. However, the advertising for Righteous Kill went so far as to present the film as the first on-screen pairing of the two, which is not true- the duo were first featured in together in The Godfather Part II, although they didn’t appear in any of its scenes together. Next up was the 1995 crime drama Heat, where they finally got to interact with one another, although only on a very limited basis.
While the Righteous Kill marketing team may be guilty of a bit of misdirection, the film does indeed represent the first instance where De Niro and Pacino perform together throughout the entire length of a movie. In addition, the movie also has an impressive supporting cast including Donnie Wahlberg, John Leguizamo, Brian Dennehy, and Curtis Jackson (Fitty!). It’s just a shame that the movie, while solid, doesn’t measure up better as a whole considering its impressive pedigree.
The film is your basic urban cop-drama with some action thrown in to keep things spicy. The plot is pretty basic as well- Tom “Turk” Cowan (De Niro) and David “Rooster” Fisk (Pacino) are veteran New York City detectives, investigating a series of murders, but what’s unusual about the victims is that they are all criminals that have slipped through the cracks of the Judicial System. As the investigation mounts, the evidence seems to suggest that the culprit behind the killings may in fact be a police officer, which…well, has been done countless times in movies before, but that makes it no less disconcerting when one of our public servants takes the law into their own hands, now does it?
Of course, the possibility of a vigilante cop on the force leads to some cloak and dagger shenanigans, with the spotlight being cast squarely on one individual for most of the film’s running length. But things are never that obvious, and the question is apparent- did he really do it, or is someone else behind everything? Of course, this builds up to a twist at the film’s climax which isn’t really much of a twist, but more of a…half-turn, maybe? A quarter-step? I’m not sure, but if you have any reasoning abilities at all, you shouldn’t walk out of Righteous Kill shaking your head at how that brilliant director and screenwriter pulled the wool over your eyes.
I may make Righteous Kill sound rather unremarkable in my write-up thus far, but that’s not to say that it doesn’t have its strong points, and those strong points are indeed its cast. Honestly, De Niro and Pacino appear to be phoning it in here, but whenever you have two actors of their caliber onscreen, one can’t help but to be transfixed. I mean, these two guys are so legendary that they could be giving backrubs to sumo wrestlers and people would buy tickets, so numbed as I was by their presence, I found it easier to digest the rather generic plot and average direction. Wahlberg and Leguizamo (whom I’m a big fan of) added to the film immensely as the pair of younger NYPD detectives working opposite of De Niro and Pacino’s characters on the murders, and the conflicts regarding the investigation between the two teams provided a welcome bit of fire to the otherwise somber proceedings.
The rest of the cast turned in solid performances (including Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson as a crooked nightclub owner and Brian Dennehy as the Police Chief) and the movie flowed well, never getting bogged down but never really generating much excitement, either. The blame for this falls squarely on the very foundations of the film- its script. It’s just a mish-mash of very worn clichés and plot devices, built to service its star power as opposed to giving its stars a reason to produce a memorable flick. Excellent direction could have helped to improve things, but it seemed to be beyond the capabilities of Jon Avnet, who helmed this project. It’s a shame that a cast such as this is somewhat wasted on what amounts to a very by-the-numbers production.
Still, in the end, I believe much of the bad press my fellow critics have been giving Righteous Kill is unwarranted. Granted, its credentials naturally raise expectations, but to most films those kind of lofty expectations tend to be unattainable. When looked at as merely a random motion picture with actors, it’s pretty good, actually. Still (and I’m just being realistic here), I can say that it does indeed reek of being a missed opportunity. Since Robert De Niro and Al Pacino only seem to make a movie together once every decade or two, coupled with the fact that they’re both pushing 70, one can only hope that they attempt to collaborate again sooner rather than later, and that this time they choose a better script as opposed to merely a payday.
