2008
Starring: Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson, Carla Gugino, John Leguizamo, Donnie Wahlberg, Brian Dennehy
Director: Jon Avnet
Runtime: 101 Minutes
Distributor: Lionsgate
Rating: R

More than a decade on from Michael Mann’s underworld epic Heat, whether you are a hardcore cinephile or a part time movie patron, when talk turns to that cup of coffee, the hairs on the back of your neck still stand on end just a little. Ever since then there have been promises and rumors flying around of an extended coming together of arguably cinema’s two greatest living actors, Robert De Niro and Al Pacino – and now that daring dream is finally a reality. Except that it’s about twelve years too late and a bloody awful, needlessly convoluted genre picture that starring any two other actors in the world would be arriving at a Wal*Mart bargain bin instead of a multiplex.

On paper it’s clear how this unfortunate beast was born; the two actors, De Niro now 65 and Pacino 68 wanted to work together again, realized that they probably should have been more pro-active years ago and that it was now or never. Enter longtime producer, bit-part director Jon Avnet waving a sophomore script by Inside Man writer Russell Gerwitz about two dogged maverick cops hunting a vigilante killer and the scrambling “will-this-do?” project is a green light. From the opening credits onwards it’s clear that in the minds of those making it this isn’t a movie, it’s an event. A quick cutting MTV style credits sequence proudly slaps up PACINO and DE NIRO in gigantic lettering so big it’s a wonder that they even bothered giving the film a title at all.

Though try as Avnet might, and boy does he try, there is no masking the simple fact that these guys are just too long-in-the-tooth for a hard-hitting cops and crooks thriller. Yes, the world-weary detective trying to see it through or put it right or dutifully tend to whatever it is before hanging up the badge is certainly a genre staple. Yes, even Riggs and Murtaugh were “too old for this shit” at the start of the Lethal Weapon franchise. But having these two wrinkled gents pumping away hard in the weight room, then shredding the targets at the firing range like it’s Point Break for pensioners is such a laughably desperate attempt to convince us that these guys can still cut it, you half expect them to high-five a passing Johnny Utah on the way out.

From there it only gets worse as the script opts for the oh-so hip (read: tired) plot device of starting at three-quarter mark and showing how we got there. Intercut with De Niro looking straight into the camera delivering what is an apparent admission of guilt to a string of mysterious killings, we watch the investigation unfold from the beginning. Though broken into segments it’s a trudging, turgid speech splattered with so much manufactured nihilism that it does little more than elicit some painfully ironic imagery of an old grumpy Gus who has seen Taxi Driver a few times too many.

For the record the two characters they play are called Detective Rooster and Detective Turk, but that’s about as important as the color of their shoes because there are no characters here – there’s simply Al and Bob.

Having spent their careers carefully refining their accepted mastery of the craft under the liked of Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese and Michael Mann, director Jon Avnet has about as much in his locker to offer these guys as the guy driving the catering truck. We know it, he knows it, and he duly steps aside and just allows them to do whatever they like.

As they set about tracking down a vigilante who may just be a cop targeting scumbags that have slipped through the cracks of an ineffectual justice system Bob adopts his trademarked close lean-in, hands in pockets, with that look of barely contained rage. Al opts for his old trick of unfettered energy where he stares past you while you talk to him, hands behind his back, riding up on the balls of his feet. Watching these patented ticks and mannerisms recycled from the classics of their respective careers it just becomes a shambling self-parody that evokes pity instead of awe. Scenes drift off into nowhere just so Al and Bob can quip back and forth about nothing in particular to which activity the narrative plays a woeful second fiddle the entire film.

When it’s not simply the Al and Bob show, the support comes in the form of John Leguizamo and Donnie Wahlberg as two young, hotheaded junior detectives assigned to the case. Karen Corelli is the DA who gets her rocks off on sex liberally laced with violence and comes over as far more creepy than alluring. Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson makes the most of an underwritten role as a slippery drug dealer who continually evades Bob and Al’s frustrated grasp. Brian Dennehy just looks dead behind his desk as the token senior officer who of course has to be even older than those under his command.

The rest of the film is little more than scenes of sequenced discussion where characters spout breadcrumb dropping dialogue so that it can later be cut up into the obligatory climactic montage where it’s all spelled out and audiences slap their foreheads in disbelief that they didn’t see the big reveal coming. Except it’s impossible not to see it coming thanks to a clumsy script littered with ineptitude masquerading as clever misdirection that’s so insulting to the viewer’s intelligence.

Consider this; you have a killer who leaves poems on the corpses of his victims as a form of catharsis and everyone in your story is a potential suspect. You then have the one character that has inexplicably managed to evade all suspicion up to that point deliver the line “you guys should write out how you feel, you’ll feel better.” If you think that’s subtle, then that’s the point you should stop what you’re doing, pack up all the equipment and donate the remainder of the film’s budget to charity.

In the end watching these two great men blunder their way through Righteous Kill is the cinematic equivalent of going to see a beloved relative in the final stages of some terrible disease. Of course you go and see them out of a great sense of respect that they have duly earned, of course you do. But you try very hard to never think of them that way because they deserve so much better.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 30th, 2008 at 7:39 pm and is filed under Feature Films, Reviews, Thriller. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.