THE heat is definitely not back on as Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino reteam for this dismal thriller about a pair of veteran detectives on the hunt for a serial killer who might just be a cop. Written by Inside Man's Russell Gewirtz and directed by – wa
it for it – Up Close and Personal's Jon Avnet (woo-hoo!), Righteous Kill's appeal might hinge on the juicy prospect of seeing two acting legends sharing the screen for an entire movie (as opposed to the few genius minutes Michael Mann provided us with in his 1995 crime classic Heat), but in this instance quantity certainly does not equal quality. In fact, it makes it harder to assign specific blame for this cliche-ridden sewer of a movie. Is it just that it's a badly constructed, appallingly directed, unsalvageable mess? Or are its failings amplified by the sight of two past-it movie stars further dragging each other down by lazily running through their ticks and tricks for another few million each? Both I suspect, but it's certainly the latter that is the more offensive sight.
At one point in Righteous Kill, their geriatric police chief – 70-year-old Brian Dennehy, waaaaaaay too old for this shit – asks their past-retirement-age detectives if they really want to end their careers with a complex investigation that might blemish their near perfect records. Both respond in the affirmative, with De Niro's detective Turk delivering some spiel about a famous baseball player risking his perfect record to continue playing long past his prime just so he could become the only player in history to crack a certain number of home runs in his career. It's an anecdote that might as well be referring to De Niro and Pacino themselves, though given the quality of both actors' work of late (anyone for Pacino in Gigli or Two for the Money? How about De Niro in Hide & Seek or Godsend?) the only achievement they can possibly be gunning for now is dubious honour of joining Orson Welles and Marlon Brando in that exclusive club where formerly great talents end their careers on the opposite rung of the quality ladder from which they started.
They're certainly more tired than inspired here. And I mean that quite literally. Pacino, whose detective is nicknamed Rooster, barely has enough puff to deliver one of his trademark honey-glazed "hoo-hah" performances. DeNiro's face, meanwhile, seems to be frozen in a "you talking to me?" grimace. Alas, with his mouth permanently turned down at the corners and his eyes squinting in pain, it's a look that seems to suggest a man with prostate trouble rather than someone conveying the intensity of a hard-bitten cop. He also has to deliver a lot of voice-over as part of the film's ludicrously contrived and blatantly obvious framing device, which only serves as a further reminder that we're not watching a Scorsese collaboration here.
More's the pity, because what we do get is an unholy amalgam of The Bucket List and Seven as these almost septuagenarian cops find themselves embroiled in a hunt for a killer who targets scumbags – pimps, rapists, child killers – and leaves poems at the scene of the crime. Unlike Seven, however, these calling cards are not the work of a great intellect; they're more of the "Roses are red/violets are blue…" vintage (to which an unkind critique of the film might conclude "Al Pacino sucks/De Niro does too"). As a younger cop (well, relatively speaking) played by John Leguizamo notes: "they're not iambic pentameter, but at least they rhyme". They sure do, but just what is the purpose of these little ditties?
That's hard to say since the film is so muddy and poorly structured none of it makes much sense. In a trick reminiscent of his excellent Inside Man screenplay, Gewirtz ditches linearity and begins with a videotaped interview with the character the film wants us to believe is the killer (it's spoiling nothing to reveal that this is one of the principal protagonists). Unlike Inside Man, however, Gewirtz hasn't been blessed with a director as skilled as Spike Lee in using such narrative trickery to create suspense or compelling drama. Instead he has Avnet, who has chopped the film into chunks interspersed with snippets of this "confession" but seems to have reassembled said chunks at random. Some scenes end before crucial information is revealed, others tell us too much too soon and still others simply repeat things we're already party to.
The supporting cast might as well be furniture too. Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson once again proves what an acting talent-vacuum he is as a drug-dealing club owner, while the excellent Carla Gugino is thoroughly wasted as a CSI-type investigator with masochistic sexual urges; her sole function seems to be to colour our perceptions of one of the protagonists.
The blundering deployment of red herrings to keep us from guessing the "big twist" is an insult too. It's clear from the start who the real killer is and no amount of one-dimensional character development or irrelevant subplots will prevent you from guessing how it's all going to end. If by chance Righteous Kill does take you by surprise, though, I hope your first movie experience hasn't put you off going to the cinema for life. Honestly, there are good films out there. The back catalogue of its two stars is a pretty good place to start.
