Such a frustrating disappointment

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

Blistering performances.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Clearly the main idea behind this movie was to have Robert De Niro and Al Pacino together in the same movie, just to get the movie mentioned in the same breath as "The Godfather 2" and "Heat" (being the only other movies that they have both appeared in). Add in Brian Dennehy and this starts to look like a Hollywood retirement village.Fairly conventional plot, though pretty lame at times. Nothing special, and certainly not deserving of the talents of De Niro and Pacino.De Niro and Pacino put in solid, though unspectacular, performances. Decent supporting cast.

I started my collegiate career in Criminal Justice at the University of Houston Downtown. I thought I could help my community. I thought I would work with others who "care". I wanted to make a difference.This movie hit me in places in my soul that I forgot existed. A young woman with stars in her eyes and a heart to care for others more than she did for her own life and safety. A girl who would give up her life to make a better world for others. During classes, I saw that those others would kill cops like me without a second thought. In fact, it was cops exactly like me who ended up dead by those they were seeking to help.The long term prognosis for being a cop never turns out okay. At the end of the career, after the watch has been given...you go off to what? Coffee and newspapers at the local IHOP where Marjorie brings you your eggs. Then you go home and what? Be alone...go to sleep alone, watch TV alone, eat dinner alone and try not to remember what you saw over your career. Well, yes, if you are lucky.Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro...they are some kind of actors...actors who tell the stories written by writers about people most of us will never know. People living their lives each moment the best they can. This movie shows how incredibly complex this life is...Makes me wonder about the cop sitting across from me at Starbuck's...he doesn't know that we may have seen the same documentaries about the vocation. He went on to put on the badge, I went on to process debits and credits. I am posting to general ledger and he processes perpetrators on a daily basis.This is another aspect of this movie...when you are judgmental you always make the wrong call. What is reality? What decision is the best decision? How to you make the best decision when you have seconds to decide? How do you judge on the street, all hours of the morning to prevent crime of just take a report of the crime in the after math? Can you stop a train from going off the tracks when that train is YOU? It's torture but it is a fabulous, fabulous movie. Thank you to Robert DeNiro, 50 Cent, and Al Pacino along with every single person who helped to make this movie a reality. I applaud you. You made me remember an aspect of me that I forgot ever existed; Poets are dangerous. Well Done.

Righteous Kill (2008): Dir: Jon Avnet / Cast: Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Carla Gugino, Curtis Jackson, Donnie Wahlberg: Here is a thriller that brings together two of the biggest icons of their generation. This is perhaps the first time since The Godfather, Part 2 that we had these two actors in the same film. Film asks questions regarding justice. Robert De Niro and Al Pacino play veteran cops out to solve a string of crimes, each involving the slaying of vicious criminals. Clever plot that details the slayings as oppose to falling into repetition. Third act presents an interesting plot twist that thankfully doesn't act on revenge. De Niro and Pacino are very good together in roles that are not what they seem. Carla Gugino plays an investigator whom loves sadomasochistic sex. Unfortunately the role isn't that broad and plays more as a sex tease than a personality. Curtis Jackson plays a drug lord in what shouldn't be a surprise. Jackson does what he can with what is nothing more than a standard role of little interest. Donnie Wahlberg is also featured as another detective. Directed by Jon Avnet with a flair of paranoia. Avnet previously directed Pacino in the underrated 88 Minutes as well as the pathetic Up Close and Personal, which is a film that should be buried under a ton of rock. Despite its message, the film seems primed for two respected actors in an average yet entertaining thriller. Score: 8 / 10

I'd heard bad things about RIGHTEOUS KILL, but how could any cop thriller teaming up two of the best actors of all time be all that bad? By the time it showed up on terrestrial TV, I was all ready to give it a sympathetic viewing if only for the pleasure of watching two former heavyweights back on-screen together.Sadly, what they said about RIGHTEOUS KILL turns out to be true: this is a piece of hokum, a badly-scripted and equally poorly-directed example of movie-making. It's so cheap and lacking in incident that the whole film seems to be taking place either in some dimly-lit warehouse or in a dimly-lit police station, and there's no style, no finesse or indeed energy injected into the proceedings at any point.The whole plot hangs on to a lame twist that's so glaringly obvious that you wonder how it got past studio bosses - do they really think audiences are this dim? Pacino and De Niro do their best with what they've got, but they do seem faintly embarrassed, as if they can tell this is no good and they're in a hurry to get it done and dusted as quickly as they can. A handful of interesting supporting actors (including Brian Dennehy) fail to provide inspiration, leaving this a lifeless dud of a film.