Here's what I took away from Righteous Kill, the grade Z cop thriller opening today: If you can come up with the scratch, Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino will do anything: kid's parties, bar mitzvahs, retirement luncheons, you name it. The two of them could dress up as clowns and sing a duet of "Don't Go Breaking My Heart" while tying balloon animals for a passel of second graders and it would be a less embarrassing career step than this movie.
Typically, a film this awful is at least awful in an interesting way. There's something about it that gets under the skin and infuriates. But Righteous Kill is awful in ways so dull and obvious they hardly merit listing: a climactic plot twist that's apparent ten minutes into the movie; dialogue so shopworn--"This was a cluster fuck to end all cluster fucks"--it should've been remaindered; more adolescent yardsticking by geriatric men than you'd endure on a blind date with Jack Nicholson. No joke: I walked into this movie two nights ago a healthy man and left with a fever of 102 that plagues me still. Be forewarned.
The only righteous fate that could befall this film is the quick, unlamented box-office death it so richly deserves.
--Christopher Orr