Righteous Kill (2008)

User Rating:

6.1/10   

Director:

Jon Avnet

Writer (WGA):

Russell Gewirtz (written by)

Release Date:

12 September 2008 (USA)

Genre:

Crime | Drama | Mystery | Thriller

Tagline:

Most people respect the badge. Everybody respects the gun.

Plot:

Two veteran New York City detectives work to identify the possible connection between a recent murder and a case they believe they solved years ago; is there a serial killer on the loose, and did they perhaps put the wrong person behind bars?

Plot Keywords:

Serial Killer | Ex Girlfriend | Murder | Bar | New York City

Awards:

1 nomination

Cast

Robert De Niro	...	Tom 'Turk' Cowan
Al Pacino	...	David 'Rooster' Fisk
50 Cent	...	Spider (as Curtis Jackson)
Carla Gugino	...	Karen Corelli
John Leguizamo	...	Det. Simon Perez
Donnie Wahlberg	...	Det. Ted Riley
Brian Dennehy	...	Lieutenant Hingis
Trilby Glover	...	Jessica
Saidah Arrika Ekulona	...	Gwen Darvis
Alan Rosenberg	...	Stein
Sterling K. Brown	...	Rogers
Barry Primus	...	Dr. Prosky
Melissa Leo	...	Cheryl Brooks
Alan Blumenfeld	...	Martin Baum
Shirly Brener	...	Natalya

Also Known As:

Õigustatud tapmine (Estonia) [et]
A Dupla Face da Lei (Portugal) (literal title) [pt]
A törvény gyilkosa (Hungary) [hu]
As Duas Faces da Lei (Brazil) [pt]
Asesinato justo (Spain) [es]
Frente a frente (Mexico) [es]
Kurzer Prozess - Righteous Kill (Germany) [de]
La loi et l'ordre (France) [fr]
Las dos caras de la ley (Argentina) [es]
Meurtre légitime (Canada: French title) [fr]
Oikeuden kasvot (Finland) [fi]
Orijinal cinayet (ler) (Turkey: Turkish title) [tr]
Ou fonefseis (Greece) [el]
Pravedno ubojstvo (Croatia) [hr]
Sfida senza regole (Italy) [it]
Zawodowcy (Poland) (poster title) [pl]

MPAA:

Rated R for violence, pervasive language, some sexuality and brief drug use.

Runtime:

101 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | Spanish

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS | Dolby Digital | SDDS

Certification:

UK:15 | Ireland:15A | Finland:K-15 | USA:R (certificate #44434) | Norway:15 | Sweden:15 | Brazil:14 | Portugal:M/16 (Qualidade) | Portugal:M/16 | Argentina:18 | Australia:MA | Germany:16 | Netherlands:12 | South Africa:16LV | Singapore:M18 | Mexico:B15

Filming Locations:

Bridgeport, Connecticut, USA

Company:

Overture Films

Trivia:

In the first movie where Al Pacino and Robert De Niro starred together, The Godfather: Part II (1974), they both played gangsters. In their second movie Heat (1995), Pacino was a cop, and DeNiro was a gangster. In this, their third movie together, they are both cops.

Goofs:

Audio/visual unsynchronized: After they handcuff Spider to the vault door, Al Pacino puts his gun in his face, and you hear the gun cock. He's holding a Glock, which has an internal hammer, and can only be cocked by pulling back the slide.

Quotes:

[from trailer]
Turk: When you walk outside, watch your back.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "De wereld draait door: (#4.14)" (2008)

Soundtrack:

My Weakness

Good Acting, Very Weak Script

Turk (Robert De Niro) and Rooster (Al Pacino) are longtime NYC police partners, in this Jon Avnet thriller that has them trying to stop an unknown serial killer, a person who leaves a poem at the scene of each crime. Victims are law-breakers who were freed on legal technicalities. Two other cops, played by John Leguizamo and Donnie Wahlberg, become suspicious of the investigation, and this hampers the efforts of Turk and Rooster.

The script on which the film is based is rather poor. The setup is muddled; none of the characters are especially sympathetic, and secondary characters are not well defined. Further, "Righteous Kill" is not that much different from other serial killer or urban crime films.

The mood here is dark, and the tone is rather cynical. Characters go out of their way to telegraph their toughness by using lots of "hard" language. There's an edginess to the characters, and that's okay. But I could have wished for a character with some degree of softness. That would have provided much needed balance to the overall tonal savagery.

Without a doubt, the film's best element is the acting. There's not a weak performance in the bunch. Of course, the focus is on De Niro and Pacino. This is really their film. And it's their camaraderie, their back and forth playful banter, that makes the film worth watching. Production design and costumes are credible. Color cinematography is generally dark, consistent with the story's mood.

In spite of a weak script, "Righteous Kill" does provide some good plot misdirection that will leave viewers unsure as to the story's outcome. But the film's main virtue is the casting of De Niro and Pacino, two contemporary screen legends whose performances here are quite good.