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It has been a long time coming: finally, with Righteous Kill, we have a film starring both Robert De Niro and Al Pacino in which they share the screen for the majority of the running time, instead of just chatting over a coffee (Heat) or living in different time periods (The Godfather Part II). But going by both actors' recent form, their long-awaited collaboration here has been looked forward to with some trepidation. A script written by Inside Man's Russell Gewirtz suggested promise however, but the director given the task of helming this project, John Avnet, is no Francis Coppola or Michael Mann (or, indeed, Spike Lee). Suffice to say, this third Pacino/De Niro partnership never even threatens to reach the heights of the previous two. In what must go down as one of cinema's biggest letdowns, Righteous Kill is just resoundingly average.
Although Avnet's direction is generally rather pedestrian, the majority of the blame should probably not be laid at his feet. Gewirtz's script, which, like Inside Man, features frequent cutaways to a main character talking directly to the camera, this time comes across as overly gimmicky. Without a compellingly devised bank heist to drive the drama, Righteous Kill plods along searching for a point. The idea of a string of murders whose victims have dodgy pasts is nothing new, but the film doesn't even attempt to look at the moral issues involved with the so-called "righteous" killings. It's all just a flimsy excuse to get to the eventual twist, which is as exciting as it is shocking - which is to say, not at all.
Most disappointing of all is that the two iconic leads come across as utterly miscast. Both seem too old for the roles (De Niro is 65, Pacino 68) and do not convince as police detectives, particularly De Niro, who for much of the time seems half asleep (emulating how the audience are bound to feel). Pacino is more lively and out-acts his co-star, but to compliment him on a performance of this calibre just shows how much he has declined in recent years. There's still a small pleasure to be had in watching the two best actors of their generation verbally spar with each other, but the novelty wears off amidst the complete mediocrity of the film. For two actors of their quality to find themselves in such a second-rate and plain forgettable film is more of a crime than anything that occurs on screen. They still have good roles in them, but unless the likes of Scorsese or Mann are willing to offer them parts, it would be better for their lasting reputation if they learned to say no.
The summary
Anyone who has ever admired De Niro or Pacino over their long careers will fail to find Righteous Kill anything but a crushing disappointment.
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