Righteous Kill

Surely someone has reviewed Righteous Kill, but if so I can't find it--just some anticipatory comments from a year ago in upcoming movies.

Having recently seen this movie and Heat in the past, I'm wondering if De Niro has taken on Pachino as a mercy case, having carried him through two mediocre films now. Whatever Pachino once had, it's gone now, and he should avoid the embarassment of appearing in the same scene with an actor of De Niro's quality. But even De Niro couldn't save the ham-handed plot of that film.

Somebody stop them before they team again!

PS, thought I was putting this in the review section, but somehow ended up in forth-coming films. Really doesn't matter. I just wanted to vent my 2-cents worth.

DeNiro hasn't been in a good film in a decade.

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Suspect's Reviews

I thought Heat was a great movie. Both Deniro and Pacino were excellent in this movie. I thought that Heat was Pacino's last good movie. I can understand that you think Righteous Kill is just mediocre. Deniro and Pacino both need to take roles more age appropriate.

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De Niro is pretty good as a Hollywood producer in the just-released -to-DVD What Just Happened.

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True, but he can still hold your attention when he's on screen. He's especially getting too old for action hero and leading man roles--I hope he doesn't turn into an embarassment like John Wayne and the record-tonnage cast of Green Berets.

Guess we'll just have to disagree on Heat and agree on the age-appropriate advice to both actors. (As for Heat, I'm hard-put to remember more than a couple of scenes from that film, neither of which include Pacino. As for the teaming of what is generally considered the two best living actors on screen, De Niro and Pacino together were as disappointingly dull as were Brando and George C. Scott supposedly busting each other's chops on-screen in The Formula).

In fact, the only interesting scene of Pacino and De Niro I can remember is in Godfather II when De Niro holds him up in the train window and says, "Wave bye-bye, Mikey."

rufnek you have not heard about the new Deniro/Pacino movie that is suppose to come out. It is called Taxi Driver vs. Scarface. They got the idea from the success of the Alien vs. Predator movies. They are going to take the Stallone route and take steriods and HGH to achieve a younger and more buff look.

vs.

Just Kidding. Anyways now that I think about it Deniro was much better than Pacino in Heat. I just really liked the movie. There also was a really good supporting cast.

I was never a big big fan of Pacino. He either always looked tired, or just screamed a lot. Still a good actor though.

You get my hopes up like that and then say just kidding!!!! What a meanie!

I know I'm probably the only person in the world who didn't get a buzz out of Heat and I'm not trying to diss a film you like. I don't have any compulsion to convert you to my viewpoint or to challenge yours. Still, lots of folks say they liked the movie, but so far no one has said in any detail why. It would be interesting to hear what you saw in the film that I apparently missed. It registered so low with me that I only vaguely recall 4-5 scenes, mostly the shootout on the landing approach to the airport. Thought they milked that scene too long, since there was no real suspense as to who would live or who would die. I've seen Law & Order TV episodes that I thought told a better story with a more interesting cast.

You're certainly right about Al looking permanently exhausted. Looks like he was rode hard and put away wet. And what's with that fright-night hair-style he's sporting? Looks like a punk rocker with that premature-aging disease.

I hope this is one of the parts you remember.



I just don't get your disdain for Pacino. He was great in The Panic in Needle Park, The Godfather, Scarecrow, Serpico, The Godfather Part II, Dog Day Afternoon, ...And Justice For All, Dick Tracy, Glengarry Glen Ross, Donnie Brasco and a few others. Now, go ahead and tell me how Audie Murphy is a better actor.

Although I've not seen it, I've always heard that he's very good in The Merchant Of Venice. Personally, I put his last good performance/movie as Donnie Brasco. I thought he was fantastic as Lefty.

Now why would I say Audie Murphy was a better actor? Murphy was more like Brad Pitt and other pretty boys in film today. He was handsome and could learn lines, but he never really acted (except maybe in a couple of scenes in The Unforgiven, which was his best role ever). Naw, Murphy was one hell of a brave and resourceful soldier, a hell of a fighter off screen, and a really awful gambler, but he was not an actor--just a movie star who mostly made B-grade Westerns. Actually, he was a better song-writer than actor.

I don't "disdain" Pacino: he's likely a nice fellow, might even be an interesting conversationalist, and he once was a pretty good actor. Like Needle Park, Godfather I & II, and Dog Day Afternoon, although the guy (never can remember his name) who played his accomplice in that film and his brother the Godfathers was always the one who captured my attention in their scenes together.

I don't remember Scarecrow and I admit to a prejudice against Serpico because I had already read the Serpico book and didn't like Serpico, his book, or the movie.

I started to tire of Pacino, I think, in Justice for All. Don’t remember why now, but I started suspecting the emperor wore no clothes. I don't think I really gave up on Pacino, however, until he tried to redo Paul Muni’s role in the remake of Scarface. Now, unlike Murphy and Pacino, Muni really was a great actor and a spellbinder in any role he played. By comparison, Pacino’s Tony Montana came on like the Frito Bandito. I swear Jose Jimenez did a better Hispanic accent! Later, in Carlito’s Way, Pacino seemed to be replaying his Montana part.

I kept waiting for Al to come to life in Sea of Love; I really had expected that to be a good film. But I had to walk out of Glengarry Glen Ross—not because of Pacino: the whole cast sucked swamp water.

I still can’t fathom why Scent of a Woman is such a big favorite of most Pacino fans. I’m not saying they’re wrong to like what they like. I’m just politely saying I personally take an opposite view. Obviously, I totally missed whatever others saw in it; for one thing, I’d already seen the blind-person-drives-a-car shtick in another movie back in the 1950s.

Haven’t seen Donnie Brasco, but not because of Pacino. The subject just doesn’t appeal to me.

So it’s not like I turn green and gag whenever Pacino is mentioned as one of the greatest actors ever. I simply am a disbeliever, although I do suspect he’s likely better on the stage than on the screen.

I forgot all about Donnie Brasco. Pacino was very good in that.

Your missing out rufnek even if you do not like subject this is very good movie. You might be suprised.

Nope. I don't pay much attention to repetitive shootouts and car chases. That's not acting. That's special effects. The stunt guys and electronics and explosives technicians set it up and then the actors do their prearranged dance---5 steps right, turn, fire, 3 steps left, turn, fire.... If you kinda squeench your eyes so that you can't make out the faces as you're watching this, it could be any 1 of 100 different shoot-outs in 100 different movies. Actually, I think the bank robbery shootout in The Wild Bunch was more interesting--they likely "killed" more innocent civilians and there was no car chase.

Plus my practical side gets in the way of this shootout. As an ex-police reporter I keep thinking how I'd write up a story about police initiating a shoot-out on a public street in which apparently dozens of civilians are killed and injured. Man, careers would end, pensions would be lost, the city would be sued, and likely a couple of cops would go to jail. Contrast the movie mayhem with that real on-the-street shoot-out in California a few years ago. The only people killed were the two bank robbers. The only people wounded were police officers. Not a single civilian got a scratch.

Sorry, it's hard to get excited about yet another film about the "true" story of an undercover cop. The story has already been told with pictures of the real characters on TV, none of whom were good-looking.

So the cop likes one of the crooks and feels bad about fooling him? Well, boo-hoo! I prefer Sam Spade's description of the proper relationship between detective and crook--that chasing crooks was bred into him and as much a part of his nature as it was for a foxhound to chase foxes. Neither the foxhound nor the detective have any sympathy for their prey.

I finally saw this movie. It was pretty bad. I wouldn't blame Pacino though. I thought he was much better than he has been in movies where he really overacts. I think the worst thing that ever happened to him was winning the Oscar for Scent of a Woman (1992). I think that performance is almost unwatchable.
The director of this, Jon Avnet, who also did 88 Minutes, has to take the blame.
You've got Pacino, De Niro, John Leguizamo and Brian Dennehy and the movie turns out like this?
The plot, even as predictable as it was, is not at fault. I'd blame the director.

I thought Pacino was really good in Donnie Brasco, and I thought the movie was really good too.

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