When you have such a monumental occasion as two giants of American acting royalty truly going 'mano-a-mano' on screen for the very first time, you would fervently hope that the project they choose to do together would be a worthy one. Unfortunately, RIGHTEOUS KILL comes across as one of those scripts that Dick Wolf probably wouldn't have looked at twice, even as a so-so LAW AND ORDER episode.
Russell Gewirtz should've either been given the opportunity to take a few more passes at this one, or maybe one of Hollyweird's fabled script doctors should've had a session or two with it. As it is, the characters reduce De Niro and Pacino to caricatures. At the very first glimpse of Al on-screen, I had to bite the inside of my cheek to stifle a guffaw - he actually looked more like Steven Van Zandt as THE SOPRANOS' Silvio Dante, doing an Al Pacino impression, than the man himself. And De Niro at times looks more like he's doing a favor for and with a good friend, than actually relishing a role worthy of his considerable talents.
They portray (or try to portray) longtime partners Turk and Rooster, grizzled NYPD vets who've played the Big Apple's garbage collectors long enough to fall prey to the desire to remove some its trash from the streets permanently. They engage in a one-time deal of fabricating evidence to take down a child rapist/murderer whose case "fell through the cracks" of the hugely flawed judicial system, but their undercover act of vigilantism soon comes back to bite them both, as a mystery serial killer takes up the mantle and starts offing street scum left and right. Because said scum have all been associated with cases they have handled, soon even their colleagues are giving them more than cautious looks askance.
And I wish this movie was as good as it sounds on paper, because trust me...it's not. Any fan of procedurals who hasn't even watched anything beyond Miami VICE in its heyday, will figure out the twist in five seconds or less, as well as the identity of the killer.
Russell Gewirtz should've either been given the opportunity to take a few more passes at this one, or maybe one of Hollyweird's fabled script doctors should've had a session or two with it. As it is, the characters reduce De Niro and Pacino to caricatures. At the very first glimpse of Al on-screen, I had to bite the inside of my cheek to stifle a guffaw - he actually looked more like Steven Van Zandt as THE SOPRANOS' Silvio Dante, doing an Al Pacino impression, than the man himself. And De Niro at times looks more like he's doing a favor for and with a good friend, than actually relishing a role worthy of his considerable talents.
They portray (or try to portray) longtime partners Turk and Rooster, grizzled NYPD vets who've played the Big Apple's garbage collectors long enough to fall prey to the desire to remove some its trash from the streets permanently. They engage in a one-time deal of fabricating evidence to take down a child rapist/murderer whose case "fell through the cracks" of the hugely flawed judicial system, but their undercover act of vigilantism soon comes back to bite them both, as a mystery serial killer takes up the mantle and starts offing street scum left and right. Because said scum have all been associated with cases they have handled, soon even their colleagues are giving them more than cautious looks askance.
And I wish this movie was as good as it sounds on paper, because trust me...it's not. Any fan of procedurals who hasn't even watched anything beyond Miami VICE in its heyday, will figure out the twist in five seconds or less, as well as the identity of the killer.