First of all apologies for being M.I.A. for a few weeks (damn you frickin' mid-sems). Now that the formalities are out of the way, here's a new post.

I would like to make it clear from the very onset that I am one of those who firmly believe in the adage, "I don't believe in GOD, I believe in Al Pacino". So when it was finalized that that Pacino is going to team up up with the almost (if not equally) talented Robert De Niro, cinema aficionados across the planet waited in bated breath for Righteous Kill.

The reason for the above is the absolute brilliance of the two leads. Robert De Niro is often regarded as one of the greatest actors of all time, and has also been called one of the most enigmatic. He is noted for his method acting portrayals of conflicted, troubled characters - as well as gangsters - and for his enduring collaboration with director Martin Scorsese.

Al Pacino on the other hand, is widely considered to be one of the greatest and most influential actors of all time. He is well known for his roles as Michael Corleone in the The Godfather trilogy, Tony Montana in Scarface, Carlito Brigante in the 1993 film Carlito's Way, Frank Serpico in Serpico, and Lieutenant Colonel Frank Slade in Scent of a Woman for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1992 after being nominated 7 times beforehand for various roles.

Righteous Kill would seem, on the surface, to be the movie a lot of people have been waiting for. Although stars Robert De Niro and Al Pacino were both in The Godfather Part II, they shared no scenes together. They did share the same space in Heat, but only for a memorable face-off. Now they team up for an an entire movie - a cop thriller at that. It should be the stuff cinematic fantasies are made up of. Shouldn't it?

As I sat in the theater watching the drama unfold, the thing that shocked me most was how the movie felt like some cheap straight-to-DVD thriller. The production values - from cinematography to editing to musical score, you name it - barely make the cut. What's needed to make a film like this work is, some sense of coherence and internal logic, which it absolutely lacks. What makes things even worse (if that was possible), is the fact that you can guess the killer's true identity a good thirty minutes before the movie ends, which can never augur well for a flick of this genre.

I'm not saying this was the worst movie ever to have been made, but definitely was a poorly executed and very predictable thriller that could have been done with average actors. Both the screen legends are above these sort of shoddy scripts which do no justice to their talent and charisma. If there's anything that marginally redeems Righteous Kill, it's the pairing of Robert De Niro and Al Pacino. This does not represent the best work from either of them but isn't half bad also. Both deliver gritty performances but there's only that little that you can do with such a substandard product.

People are going to expect a lot more from such formidable match-up than Righteous Kill can ever hope to give. Putting these two actors in a film, promises something hard-hitting and maybe even unforgettable. But it fails miserably (sigh!). But the thing that ultimately sealed it for me, was the fact that the longer the movie went on, the more I disliked it.

Pray!