Righteous Stink

Two Acting Greats Sink Deeper Than the Mind can Comprehend.
by
 Morgan P Salvo

You would think that a new movie starring Robert Deniro and Al Pacino would have to be good. I am perplexed beyond my wildest imagination as to why either Deniro or Pacino would even let this script (if you could even call it that) sit on their desk, lap or balance on their garbage disposal. It is truly that bad. What happened to these two acting giants? These guys brought countless phenomenal performances in past decades including Raging Bull, Dog Day Afternoon and Godfather 2. Maybe someone should’ve spotted their senility early and sent them out to pasture. The fact that they even considered this movie let alone took on such stereotypical roles is one thing, but to play them so vapidly is beyond comprehension. That’s how insufferable Righteous Kill gets.
The plot surpasses idiocy almost immediately. Two veteran NYPD cops must find a serial killer (who just might be a cop) who’s killing bad guys. The perpetrator leaves notes (now follow here closely) in the form of HANDWRITTEN poems. Now ask yourself, when would they go to the handwriting specialist? Answer: NEVER. The apparently unrelenting wretched screenplay doesn’t want us to use logic. It wants us to succumb to the presence of Al and Bob’s greatness so as to not notice the loopholes. It has a twist and the twist is insultingly obvious. If any average movie-goer cannot figure out where it’s going in the first 10-15 minutes then their cinema card should be revoked. When what we ALL know is going to happen finally does, it gets explained in a shockingly touching shoot-out moment that leaps from preposterous to just plain insane. It was possibly the worst scene in a movie I have ever witnessed.
As detective “Rooster” Pacino saunters around all tan and coiffed, sleepwalking in his mellow shtick and as his partner “Turk” Deniro (all puffy and agitated) does his hot-head bulldog spiel. My God what went wrong? These guys were the ultimate actors to watch do their thing, now they waddle, sigh and seem so not-into proving anything that I don’t think I will see a movie they make ever again. John Leguezamo and Donnie Wahlberg try to add some spice by acting smart and tough but their dialogue and characters’ moronic bumbling boggles the mind. Brian Dennehy walks through the “you’d-better-not-mess-up-or-else” police commissioner role. Carla Gugino as yet another all hot and steamy forensic sex-kitten likes to be abused for sex but not in real life.
Jon Avnet (Fried Green Tomatoes) has no business directing anyone who swears and carries a gun. He has no clue. His non-visionary style and god-awful, unoriginal concept of editing almost drove me up the wall. And he must have some kind of blackmail over Pacino for getting him to be in another of his movies. Wasn’t 88 Minutes truly horrid enough?

This is one of the most generic cop movies I’ve ever seen—if it was shot on video with unknown actors it would’ve gone direct to cable. Chubby Checker was needed to sing the line “How low can you go?” from Limbo Rock behind this entre fiasco. When two of America’s finest actors stoop this low I feel there is no justice left in the world. The only elevating aspect to this movie is that it stunk to high heaven.

Righteous Kill
Starring Robert Deniro, Al Pacino
Directed by Jon Avnet
 ZERO and I mean teetering on MINUS stars