Poll Position: "Righteous Kill" (2008)

I have been waiting for a movie like this for a long time. We have both De Niro and Al Pacino in one movie, two actors that have played their fair shares of New York residing cops or criminals. Even though I’m not the biggest Pacino fan, I could totally see him working in perfect tangent with De Niro. Both have that crazy attitude with the tough guy appearance. But now that they are getting old, this might be too little too late. These are my wonderful thoughts on "Righteous Kill".

Two old and retiring cop partners, Turk (De Niro) and Rooster (Pacino) are fed up with the lack of justice going around in New York. Murders, rapist and all other kinds of criminals are being acquitted for their crimes. But a bittersweet hero comes into play when a serial killer starts to murder off some of these acquitted criminals. Both Turk and Rooster are leading the case and need to stop the killer before it gets too far. But to make it even tougher, the two are teamed with a younger team, Perez (John Leguizamo) and Riley (Donnie Wahlberg). Can the two teams put aside their petty jealousy to solve who is killing off all these people?

Don't worry boys, you weren't the only one bored while watching the movie.

What happened?! This movie could have been amazing but it just flopped. I was so disappointed with this movie. De Niro wasn’t this badass New York cop, he was this pansy watered down version of himself. And Pacino, what happened? Did you take a few too many Vicodins before getting in front of the camera? You looked dazed and confused, I know you are getting older, but you can’t blame forgetting how to act on old age. It honestly seemed like the two didn’t care at all about this movie. Thankfully Leguizamo and Wahlberg do a decent enough job being the young team, they were alright. Then again, it would be hard to look bad compared to Pacino and De Niro here.

Thankfully the story isn’t all too bad. It is though  very linear and nothing too spectacular but it kept my interest long enough to be shocked at the end of the movie. I honestly didn’t see that coming, but in hindsight I probably should have. All the signs were right there! Secondly, the side plot with Turk and Det. Karen Corelli (Carla Gugino) being friends with benefits. Why on this great land of ours did I need to see old flabby De Niro shirtless so many times during their sex scenes? It reminded me of when you put in too much waffle batter into the waffle maker and the excessive runs over the side of the maker, and everything is stretching. Oh lord, I might need to puke.

"What did we see in this movie?"

I cannot for the life of me think of why this wasn’t a straight to TV movie. It never felt like a proper movie, most of the cast is b-list, and for a crime movie there isn’t a lot of action going on. A few scenes with some of the criminals getting a shot a few times, that is all, nothing spectacular. People actually paid to see this in theatres? Forget about it. This movie is a slice of baloney, can’t even give it credit for a whole pack of baloney too.

But seriously, what happened here? I guess you can’t mix up two good things to make a better thing, case in point my poutine and ice cream mixture. There is almost nothing that is worth salvaging from this movie. Lackluster action incorporated with boring and mundane acting leaves a bad taste in my mouth, coincidently enough tasting very similar to my contraption. It can’t be stressed enough how no one should need to suffer through this.