Righteous Kill, Wasted Potential

When Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino, two of history’s most revered thespians, consent to share top billing in a movie, it’s not unreasonable to expect something truly astounding. Therefore, when Righteous Kill turns out to be the mediocre spawn of NYPD Blue and Dexter, it’s not unreasonable to be profoundly disappointed. Full of quality acting but brought down by bland direction and questionable story structure, it just leaves the viewer wondering what didn’t quite click.

Righteous Kill is the story of Turk (DeNiro) and Rooster (Pacino), two NYPD detectives who’ve been partners since at least the bicentennial. They’re world weary and more than a little cynical, but essentially good guys with the Big Apple’s best interests at heart. When criminals who managed to cheat justice start winding up dead with customized poetry at the scene, suspicion turns to present and former cops. This understandably sets off a blaze of infighting and accusations, especially from a younger pair of detectives (Donnie Wahlberg & John Leguizamo) still going through the rigors of proving themselves. These are certainly the bones of a great story, the problem lies largely in how director Jon Avnet and writer Russell Gewirtz decided to give the story flesh.

Having made his screenwriting debut with Inside Man, which I consider to be one of the best heist movies ever made, Gewirtz set a rather high bar for himself. But instead of attempting to improve further upon his talent for memorable scenarios and intricate plotting, he reverts to recycling Inside’s device of perception altering monologues and gives his characters no material that hasn’t been done ad nauseam in the Law & Order franchise. And I for one could have really done without the plot thread involving Carla Gugino’s need for escalation in the roughness of her sex life. Even worse is Avnet’s truly uninspiring staging of one generic scene of police procedure after another. He tries to make things interesting by occasionally cutting quasi-related scenes together in succession, but this succeeds only in muddling the story.

But the writing and directing aren’t what audiences are anticipating, they’re dropping their $8.50 to see the men who once were Tony Montana and Jake LaMotta spend two hours hanging out together making tough guy faces and acting like the godlike bad asses they pretty much are. On that level, Righteous Kill succeeds. Their performances create a partnership that feels authentic and characterizations that blend with the story rather than dominate it. In fact, every major player (even 50 Cent, who shows up in a handful of scenes as a drug dealer) makes the most of their material. If things had been a little different behind the scenes, this movie could have been a worthy successor to crime sagas like The Departed and (cruel irony alert) Heat but as it stands, Righteous Kill will likely be remembered as little more than a footnote in showbiz history or an answer in the next edition of Scene It!