Not so Righteous Kill

Acting powerhouses Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino first co-starred together in 1995's "Heat" but only shared one scene. Now they share an entire film together and unfortunately they selected a pedestrian paycheck vehicle in "Righteous Kill." DeNiro was originally signed to star in an old cop young cop story, casting fell through and DeNiro suggested bringing in Pacino. The screenplay was rewritten and it shows causing "Righteous Kill" to be a substandard routine cop picture.

Despite the massive publicity concerning the teaming of these two acting legends, a critical warning was "Righteous Kill" comes from the same production team and director, Jon Avnet, responsible for Pacino's failed "88 Minutes." DeNiro and Pacino play Turk and Rooster, NYPD detectives partnered for decades, who answer to stereotypical crusty lieutenant Brian Dennehy. Turk is hot tempered and aggressive and is busy banging CSI cop Karen (Carla Gugino) who likes her sex rough. Rooster is the mellow chess player always coming down his volatile partner.

The story begins with the two old pros wanting to take down club owning and drug dealing Spider (Curtis Jackson) then the plot quickly evolves into a serial killer is executing deserving bad guys thus righteous kills. It swiftly becomes apparent the filler is a cop. The audience knows it is going to be either DeNiro or Pacino and it is easy to guess which one. Dennehy puts the screws on to solve the case so Karen becomes involved as well as rival detective team John Leguizamo and Donnie Walhberg from another precinct. There is the cliche bad blood between between DeNiro and Leguizamo who probably only took the thankless supporting role in order work with DeNiro and Pacino.