Righteous Kill
Many people
don’t know this, but one of the contractual obligations surrounding the
awesomeness of the movie Heat was that if a shitty script came along
that was a crime thriller only it ended with DeNiro shooting Pacino and
comforting him in his dying moment, the two actors were obligated to make
it. Also, if somebody writes a shitty
mafia movie featuring parallel father son arcs, Pacino is obligated to play the
father and DeNiro the son this time.
In Righteous
Kill Pacino and DeNiro play buddy senior citizen law enforcers. DeNiro has embraced his age dresses in full
old man clothes, whereas Pacino struts around with rooster hair and black
leather jackets looking like Ronnie Wood.
Despite lots of scenes that are meant to show us how virile and macho
these old dudes are, none of it is terribly convincing and none of it really
comes into play in the main movie. We
get shots of these two guys firing automatic assault rifles in a target range
and actually hitting the target without glasses. Yet they’re detectives, but who knows,
sometimes an investigation can lead to Afghanistan. They also lift weights and do all sorts of
exercise that appears to have no impact on their physiques.
For the most
part they do the same shit all cops do: harass immigrants, make fun of people’s
names and accents, try to solicit a tea bagging from a Russian hooker. Ya know, your standard serving and protecting
type shit.
They start off
on a narcotics case that leads to a rap club.
DeNiro goes into the rest area to take a piss (because he’s old) and a
young chick lawyer who looks like Alicia Silverstone is in there and she seems
to have never seen a penis before considering the way she marvels at DeNiro’s
ability to piss standing up. I guess she’s
also never seen a cop before because the sight of a grey-haired paunchy
sixty-year-old white dude in a plaid button-up shirt and a tweed jacket in a
rap club doesn’t cause her to hesitate from doing cocaine right in front of
him. Busted. Jeez, what strip club did she put herself
through law school working in? They
should ask for their tuition back.
Then the two do
the interdepartmental jump typical of cop movies, they go from narco to
homicide where they’re all of a sudden investigating a killer who writes rap
songs on cue cards and shoves them up priests’ asses and then kills them. I was hoping for some more witty banter but I
guess a priest lying dead on the floor with his pants down and Carla Gugino
fishing a rap song out of his ass is kinda its own punchline. But they do quickly explain why these guys
can switch between vice and homicide, there’s only five cops on this police
force! So of course everybody has to
wear multiple hats. There’s a scene
where Pacino, DeNiro, and two of the other three cops played by Donnie Walhberg
and John Leguizamo are sitting around trying to solve the murder and they
decide it’s a cop who’s doing the killing.
I was wondering why they’re eyes kept darting around at each other like
the suspect must be in the room, but then I realized, you never seen any
other cops, not just in passing or anything.
The police station is a one wood-panelled room with a basement
area. Apparently at one point there was
a sixth New York police officer because they go and investigate him in
retirement, but I guess they’re trimming down staff by attrition.
There are
benefits to a small intimate and versatile police force. For example, the guys who are already vice
and homicide are also internal affairs.
And since they’re all buddies they let each other know when they’re
under investigation for corruption.
Hell, I’m sure a guy has probably been asked to audit himself at some
point in this department’s history.
The movie
prettymuch tells you this is a twist movie right away. But I figured Donnie Walhberg’s involvement
would guarantee better twisting. As a
veteran of the SAW movies I expected more from him. But they twist this movie like it’s 1992 or
something. Just one twist, and you’re
pretty fucking stupid if you don’t see it coming. Sorry.
But you are. I think in
entertainment this trashy we expect loads of twists, we don’t expect them to
really all add up, but we expect them to be plentiful.
They seem to be
giving you way too much information right away, having DeNiro filming himself
confessing to the murders and narrating the whole thing with guilt. So we fucking know it’s not actually him
doing the killings. They give us reason
to think DeNiro is unbalanced, for example: they have multiple scenes of him
spazzing out over baseball showing that he takes his beer league of a stupid
sport way too seriously, but then he doesn’t even seem to appreciate the fact
that he’s got a solid fuckbuddy relationship with Carla Gugino. I mean, shit, she’s got like ten years on me
but I’d kill a hobo for twenty minutes of motorboat action from her and this
old potbellied cranky fucker doesn’t seem the least bit pleased by her. I mean, fuck, if you’re playing baseball who
gives a fuck if you’re safe or if you’re out of if it’s a strike, you’re going
home to fuck Carla Gugino anyway. Chill
the fuck out, motherfucker. Those are
some fucked up priorities if you ask me.
Maybe the Viagra bills are steep, but I’d grin and bare that cost. But still, we know he’s not the killer. Just a Guginofuckunappreciator, which is in a
way, worse.
And that’s
kinda the problem with this whole feature, not DeNiro’s priorities, but that
this film kinda feels like it’s just stalling until the big reveal and so I got
restless watching. I was hoping this
movie would at least have the dedication to creating funny moments of a David
Ayer movie, but no. There was a funny
part where they introduce a pimp who rides a skateboard because I guess he’s
going green or whatever and then shoot him right away. But decent material like this is little and
far between in this film.
There’s also
that point that happens in most shitty movies and especially shitty thrillers,
where something happens and you can’t understand how several people could read
this script and rehearse these scenes without somebody asking the writer what
the fuck is up with a certain plot development.
For most of the movie, Pacino is just a deranged vigilante. He kills killers and rapists and writes rap
songs and shoves them up their asses.
But then I guess they have to make him really bad or something so out of
nowhere he just rapes Carla Gugino and then defends this action to DeNiro
saying that the way the case was going he “had to do something”. Say whut?
I was killing all these bad people and in no danger of getting stopped
so I just had to rape an innocent lady.
Yeah, alright.
The whole thing
comes down to an old man action sequence in a cylinder factory. I’ll bet you always wondered where they make
cylinders, apparently it’s in the back of bank/rap club run by 50 Cent. Now, I just gotta find out where they make
cones, cubes, and other geometric shapes.
I’ll bet Ja Rule is involved. The
old man action is really embarrassing.
I’m not sure if watching DeNiro light jog / speed walk was more embarrassing
than a CGI motion capture DeNiro running at full speed would’ve been. And you get some DTV Steven Seagal obvious
stunt doubles doing things any normal man could do like climbing over a
waist-high steel bar.
And I don’t
want to sound like I don’t think old guys can do toughguy movies, this just
isn’t how you do it. Gran Torino
is how you fucking do it. And speaking
of Clint, they directly reference Dirty Harry in this movie. I know lots of folk get angry at pop culture
references in movies and for the most part I’m more tolerant than those
whiners. But when you’re movie is
basically a shitty ripoff of Magnum Force and you then have the
characters quoting that movie you’re getting into Doomsday territory of
rubbing your influences a little too hard in my face.
So in
conclusion, see Heat and Gran Torino. But you already have, so you’re golden.
If you liked this, here’s some other
recommended writings:
Of all the films I’ve
watched in the past week, this one is the mediocrest.
And yes, this is the film
in which Eva Mendes gets a handjob on screen in the opening scene.
After writing about an atypical Tom Cruise movie, I move on to an
atypical Stallone movie.
There’s only one way
out….of The Cage!