"Righteous Kill" (2008) - Movie Review

The titans of the Hollywood fame of acting Robert De Niro and Al Pacino pairs up for their onscreen showdown where they share the screen together unlike “The Godfather – II” and they do it for a lot more than five minutes than they did in “Heat”. Unlike those two, this is not in the league of it but does not go down the drain completely either. Now let me settle down one thing before we go on this review. For the recent times I have constructed the expectation for the films I view, which is to have none. Even the expectation should be decided during the film. Hence I was not expecting fireworks by these veterans. They sure do ignite the screen but the film is a little behind time, say twenty years.

We see De Niro reading a confession of a kind about the killings he did in his life. It is Turk and he is a cop. He says he has killed fourteen people. He tells about his partner Rooster (Al Pacino) who has always stayed behind his back in decisions both good and bad. Now Turk is a rage maniac on high wire when he sees a criminal and that means a lot. He is controlled and toned down by Rooster who wants the same thing as Turk but in a mature patient manner. They are dragged into the mess when the bad guys are getting killed by a serial killer.

We all know how these two people can flip the smallest of roles into a detailed character in minimal time. So they do it with ease and that sparkle this otherwise out of date screenplay suspense. Writer Russell Gewirtz has found the wrong generation to showcase this film through a cast whom most directors drool to direct. After viewing Jon Avnet’s disastrous “88 Minutes”, I wrote he should redeem himself for Pacino in this film. He does not redeem himself but does a fair justice to the screenplay he was handed.

The current generation has seen more than enough of suspense films. Gone are the days when information was concealed to heighten the curiosity and then jump from a closed door to yell “surprise”. Now a day without sharing information it is a cheap sport game. Rather the audience has expected to be part of this suspense but this is the key which has been forgotten by films like “Righteous Kill” which is to have the substance in arriving it. The suspense is not the film, the screen play is.

Without much expectation, apart from some silly explanations in ending, the film does its job of “entertainment”. It has De Niro spitting profanity we crave to look forward while Pacino does the cool and easy one-liners. Surprisingly there are two supporting roles which would be overlooked by many. John Leguizamo and Donnie Wahlberg match up these giants with a fearless characterization as the other two cops running around to find the killer. Carla Gugino as the hard lover of Turk has an unknown but clearly unnecessary sexual tension. Fortunately it does not flow through much into the film.

It runs as an exercise and has a passion dying right away as soon as we see these two legends on the screen. They sleep walk the material and that is all is needed for a film like this. De Niro and Pacino have seem to long taken retirement from dramatic films. True that they have done countless spectacular roles but when you see talents take easy shots and walk by, there is a sense of being put down. What they do and be contended is theirs but on the looks of the recent history, their choices of roles looks to be long away from the roles they could take upon.

“Righteous Kill” does not provide any moral or conscious scale to weigh either. If you take away the sexual encounter of Turk, both of them have an absent personal life. They are laborious in being cops but the moral dilemma in either of those is simply handled. You do not need a plot twist for two veteran cops at the edge of their retirement deal with their outlook on right and wrong. All it needs are wonderful actors and a screenplay having sense of its time and people. “Righteous Kill” gets the former and misses later.