Poll Position: Righteous Kill (2008)

The winner of this week's poll was Righteous Kill starring not only Al Pacino, the subject of the poll, but also the great Robert De Niro for an all star team-up! I remember seeing the trailer for this in the theater years ago, but I never ended up seeing it. I thought it looked amazing, especially to see two powerhouses like De Niro and Pacino team up in one movie. It seemed to come and go very fast, and I've never really heard anyone talk much about it. That's probably not a good sign. Being that this is a mystery, everything hinges on how that aspect plays out. Should you even bother seeking out Righteous Kill? Hit the jump to find out!


This isn't the first time these two greats have teamed up. They played opposing sides in Heat, in which Pacino was the detective trying to catch De Niro as the criminal. This time around though, they're both cops and partners! There's a serial killer on the loose, but he's only hitting scum, like pimps and rapists. After adding up all the facts, it seems the killer is probably NYPD himself. Two teams are put on the case, the older team made up of 'Rooster' (Al Pacino) and 'Turk' (Robert De Niro), while the younger team consists of Perez (John Leguizamo) and Riley (Donnie Wahlberg). It's not only a race against the killer's clock, but a race between the teams to see who can catch the killer-cop first. One problem there, what if one of these four men is actually the killer?

Turk and Rooster check out the latest victim of the "Poet Killer"

While the acting in the movie was pretty good, what lets it down is the script. Of course Pacino and De Niro are good, there's no questioning that, but everything they say is either really bland and boring, or incredibly stereotypical. It also doesn't help that while acknowledging that these characters are older, they still expect us to believe they're super cops. The opening montage (yes, it opens with one) shows the two of them nailing every single shot they fire, pumping iron, winning chess games without even trying, and don't forget to add a dash of girls baseball coaching for that added touch of "good guy".

After that not so effective start, it immediately goes into a confession by one of the cops about being the killer. Right at the very start! I thought this was going to be a mystery?! There was also this really bad looking effect on the confession. I couldn't tell if it was just supposed to look like a bad recording or some b.s. C.S.I. holographic nonsense. Needless to say, this movie wasn't starting off on a good foot.

50 Cent plays a drug dealing club owner that Rooster and Turk have been trying to take down for ages

Since the movie chooses to start off telling you to your face "This character is the bad guy" you're left with only one choice for this "mystery" movie. Do you believe the confession, or don't you? That's it really. I really didn't understand why in a mystery, they would give you the ending in the first 5 minutes. I mean, if this whole film is just about showing you how he got to that point, then why would they still be trying to hide who the killer is for the whole movie? But herein lies the problem. This is not a good movie, let alone a good mystery.

You see, in a good mystery, you are given clues and hints so that you can slowly piece together the solution for yourself. In the best mysteries, you don't see the ending coming until it happens, and usually it's surprising and you can't believe what the answer was. You'll still come up with your own theories, and again, in a good mystery, you'll have to constantly change and modify what you think as you learn more facts. The problem with this movie, is that as it played out, I never had to change my theory, not even once. Everything I saw unfold, while constantly trying its hardest to misdirect me, was just really clumsy and obvious. I was watching scenes and listening to lines and thinking to myself, "I really hope they don't have one of those lame quick-cut edit jobs at the end, where they show you all those bits from earlier in the film you should have picked up on." Sure enough, that's exactly what they had at the end and all the lines I had heard so obviously thrown out there, were now mushed altogether in a big sloppy mess.

The "other team" who are trying to pin it on one of our boys

I had some pretty high hopes for this film, and while the actors involved were good, nothing they said or did was exciting, or even interesting. There is very little action, and many of the characters that are introduced are really there just to fill space and don't have much purpose in the end. The "mystery" was laughable and incredibly obvious, making for a wholly disappointing package. Probably what was most annoying, was that at one point, a character sees the killer, and now totally knows, 100% who it is. But now the scenes are edited in just such a way that we never hear when they say the killer's name or see a picture of who they're identifying. Now they weren't even giving clues, they were just rubbing it in your face that they knew, and you didn't... except, it turns out, I did cause this movie is crap. Don't bother with this one, it was a real let down.