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BaftaBaby 
"Always entranced by cinema."
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 Posted - 09/25/2008 : 22:59:09
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Righteous Kill
It's the film they should have made about twenty years ago - not because they're too old, but because the entire conceit and execution are just so old-fashioned.
As actors both De Niro and Pacino bring what each always does: absolute commitment to the moment. They embody truth, which is why you always believe them whatever persona they inhabit. And that's why this film will attract punters. Denied for so long seeing these two together onscreen [forget those few minutes in Heat] fans will make this thriller a must see.
But whether or not they 2nd-guess the cat and mouse game which the script plays on its audience, at some point even the most devoted fans will have to admit this film probably belongs on tv. It simply fails to deliver a big screen promise.
As NYPD detectives both actors are entirely comfortable in the conflicted criminal milieu that has affected - even arrested - their emotional development. It's amazing how much unspoken back story they're able to add to characters which are not so much underwritten as predictable. Cops of this calibre are never stupid, though the intelligence has too narrow a focus to call it intellectual.
Adding to the glib reality on the law's side are Lt Brian Dennehy and the rival partnership of John Leguizamo and Donnie Wahlberg. On the wrong side, 50 Cent exudes a quiet confidence as a coke-dealing club owner. Forensic chick Carla Gugino does double duty in the precint and as De Niro's masochistic lover. Wisely Jon Avnet keeps the bedroom door closed to the camera.
I say that not because I'm a prude, but because it's a directorial choice that presages and echoes one of the films conceits - that what's imagined is far more potent than what's laid bare in front of you.
Ironically that's part of what makes the film old-fashioned. No, not the lack of overt sex, but the focus away from the dedicated drudgery of police work, away from the acknowledgment of crime victims as people and not plot devices, away from the complexity of cause and effect and into a tale of two cops plunged into personal cesspits of vigilante acting out.
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Edited by - BaftaBaby on 09/26/2008 01:00:49 |
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Demisemicenturian 
"Four ever European"
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Posted - 10/16/2008 : 02:40:42
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| Spoiler: Stupidly, the twist did not occur to me in advance, which made the film better for me at the end than I had expected. Had I bothered to think about it, I hope I would have thought of it, as something really seemed lacking till then. But I'm glad I was being stupid, I guess. |
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Righteous Kill
