Film Review: Righteous Kill (Spoiler Alert)

It was a coin toss between Deniro & Pacino or Sam Jackson in Lakeveiw Terrace. In the end Al and Bobby won.

RIGHTEOUS KILL stars Robert Deniro and Al Pacino as cops so close they almost seem like brothers. Deniro is solid as Lieutenant Turk the narrator of our story and the seemingly plausible suspect in a series of fourteen vigilante murders that are integral to this film's plot.

Turk (Deniro) is the hot head; quick to mouth off at his superiors and anyone else who pisses him off. Lieutenant Fisk aka Rooster (Al Pacino) is the water that cools him down. Rooster is Turk's anchor, his advocate and in some points his conscious trying to direct his partner to do the right thing.

As the story moves forward with Turk as main focal point we barely examine his place in the world as a New York City Cop. The story is told with blips and blurbs and extreme close ups. Even so, from the beginning we are motivated to believe that Turk (Deniro) is the good cop gone very bad. On the other hand, we have Rooster (Al Pacino), who like Turk, is a cop. Unlike Turk, he seems less frustrated with the life of a cop and more accepting of the things he cannot change. At face value, He has faith in his partner and is willing to go to bat for him when the chips are down. Rooster is methodical and calculating where Turk seems to go from his sleeve or his gut.

When murderers, rapists, drug lords, and pimps seem to fall through the cracks of the legal system, they are all later on found dead with a 4 lined poem and gun near the body. As I said before, all the loose ends seem to point at Turk whose frustrations as a cop and a man are more obvious than his guilt. I actually began to think that the killer should be given a medal or some form of absolution that comes from these crime dramas. But, that would have smoothed the true grit and taken away from the sombulant realism of this film and made it more like a film from Lifetime or the Oxygen network. In movies and in life, there is always an order; even if there is no clear right or wrong, their are always choices.

Well, in the end, a killer is revealed and it is not Turk. In movies as in life, there is a time when some things draw to a close and all is revealed. And when the shit hits the fan we see Rooster for what he is--a killer, plain and simple. Rooster is a killer who (overtime because of one mistake) lost the one great faith in his partner. It shakes him too his core and he takes the law into his own hands.

I feel like an idiot, though. I didn't see it coming. All I could keep thinking is when are they going to reveal what made Turk snap. Turk didn't snap. He never snapped. He always says whats on his mind. Never internalizes anything and shoots straight from the hip. Rooster kept his partners secret for 30 years only to try to use it against him in the end.

Rooster snapped.

I am not totally enthralled with this film, but it kept me guessing; it did entertain me.





This movie also stars Carla Gugino, John Leguizamo, Donnie Wahlberg, Curtis Jackson (50 Cent) and Brian Dennnehy. A fact not evident in any of the films trailers. Frankly I did not know Brian Dennehy was still alive and if 50 has to get shot by somebody I am glad it was Al Pacino.