Righteous Kill

Decent idea with a good cast that could have been great had smarter heads been behind it

Spoiler alert - pairing De Niro and Pacino together does not result in a great film alone. Given the chance to star alongside each other for what, on this outcome, may well be the final time, De Niro and Pacino play a pair of veteran detectives struggling to keep up with a serial killer on the loose. Thinking back I struggle to recall either of their characters actually doing any police work in the slightest, this falls to Donnie Wahlberg and John Leguizamo. Both actors play their characters as nonchalant, wise-cracking smart asses. This is a natural character for Pacino but why both need to appear so is unnecessary and just adds to the feeling that their hearts were not in this fully. That said, the story plods along until the dreadful twist at the end that left me more confused initially than anything else until I recognised how the writer had got away with it. A cheap trick, not in league with the writers previous work (Inside Man), that leaves the viewer feeling disappointed with the previous hour and half serving no purpose but lead up to this charade. Ardent Pacino and De Niro fans may be interested but otherwise steer clear.

I really did not get why the put all those humping scenes in there. In addtion to not adding anything to the story, it was also utterly ridiculous: an aging man (and DeNiro looks his age, 65, in the movie) humping a woman half his age, like a young stud, is not believable. At his age, most men have given up on achieving anything in that arena and just try to keeo their prostate healthy...

You know you're in trouble when you look forward to the scenes that 50 Cent is in. Marvel as two hacks who should be ashamed of themselves collect their paycheques for making little or no effort throughout until Pacino phones in some trademark hysteria and eye-rolling at the end. Gasp as the plot twist which was obvious from the start is revealed to an audience who by this time surely couldn't care less. Cringe as the dodgy sub-plot (she likes it rough) leads to nasty payback. She deserved it, innit. But the audience didn't.

I turned of my new flat screen tv after watching this movie for five minutes. If a movie starts off really bad, you know it can only get worse. So why waste your time siting through this ? Hollywood's assumption that you can just arrange a date between arguably two of the best actors ever and make it work, **** did not quite work out. I would say the best thing about this movie is that you can tell after 55 seconds that it is crap. That way, you have a choice.