Righteous Kill is a 2008 American crime thriller film directed by Jon Avnet and written by Russell Gewirtz. The film stars Robert De Niro and Al Pacino as New York City Police Department detectives on the hunt for a serial killer who hunts and kills criminals who evaded justice, and is known by the moniker "Poet". It is the third film in which both De Niro and Pacino appear in starring roles (after The Godfather Part II and Heat), and also stars John Leguizamo, Carla Gugino, Donnie Wahlberg, Brian Dennehy and Curtis Jackson.
Righteous Kill was released in the United States on September 12, 2008. The film received negative reviews from critics and grossed $79.4 million against a $60 million budget.
Contents
Plot
Police psychologists review video recordings made by Detective David "Turk" Fisk in which he discusses how much he admires his partner of almost 30 years, Detective Tom "Rooster" Cowan.
A serial killer is called The Poetry Boy for his modus operandi of murdering criminals and leaving short poems with their bodies. Turk and Rooster investigate the murder of a pimp named Robert "Rambo" Brady. Less experienced detectives Karen Corelli, Simon Perez and Ted Riley are also on the case. When they find a poem on the body, the cops deduce it is Poetry Boy's tenth victim. There is tension among the detectives since Turk is living with Perez's ex-girlfriend, Corelli.
Other victims of Poetry Boy include acquitted rapist Jonathan Van Luytens, and a Catholic priest named Father Connell, a child molester whose victims included Poetry Boy. Russian mobster Yevgeny Magulat survives an assault by Poetry Boy, then shoots at Perez's house and rapes Corelli.
Suspecting Turk of being Poetry Boy due to his marksmanship skills and psych evaluations, Perez and Riley arrange to secretly observe a meeting between Turk and suspected drug dealer Marcus "Spider" Smith. Expecting Turk to reveal his homicidal tendencies, he's instead proven innocent by having a firearm inconsistent with Poetry Boy's, and reciting a humiliating poem that is also inconsistent with the killer's style. Perez and Riley leave the scene unsatisfied, and Rooster then kills Spider, dropping his journal during their confrontation.
Turk discovers the journal, in which Rooster predicted Spider would be Poetry Boy's fourteenth victim. Rooster puts Turk in front of a video camera and forces him to read it, revealing that Rooster is the actual David Fisk/Poetry Boy, while Turk is actually Tom Cowan. Rooster admits losing his faith in the justice system when Turk, whom he admired, planted evidence to incriminate a man previously acquitted on charges of child molestation and murder named Charles Randall. The injustice turned Rooster into a vigilante serial killer.
Turk chases Rooster to a construction site, tries to resist Rooster's attempts to goad him into killing him, but is forced to shoot him. Rooster begs Turk to let him die, and Turk calls off the paramedics, allowing Rooster to succumb to his wounds.
Turk becomes the coach of a youth girls' baseball team, and Corelli cheers from the bleachers.
Cast
Robert De Niro as Detective Tom "Turk" Cowan
Al Pacino as Detective David "Rooster" Fisk
Curtis Jackson as Marcus "Spider" Smith
Carla Gugino as Detective Karen Corelli
Donnie Wahlberg as Detective Teddy Riley
Trilby Glover as Jessica
Shirly Brener as Natalya
Melissa Leo as Cheryl Brooks
Oleg Taktarov as Yevgeny Mugalat
Alan Rosenberg as Internal Affairs Detective Stein
Sterling K. Brown as Internal Affairs Detective Rogers
Alan Blumenfeld as Martin Baum
Rob Dyrdek as Robert "Rambo" Brady
Brian Dennehy as Lieutenant J.D. Hingis
John Leguizamo as Detective Simon Perez
Saidah Arrika Ekulona as Assistant District Attorney Gwen Darvis
Barry Primus as Dr. Prosky
Adrian Martinez as Glenn (uncredited)
Jim Jones: Cameo (uncredited)
Production
In May 2007, it was reported that Robert De Niro and Al Pacino would star in Righteous Kill, a thriller written by Russell Gewirtz and directed by Jon Avnet from Emmett/Furla Oasis and Millennium Media that would follow two cops investigating a serial killer. According to executive producer Randall Emmett, the film came about from De Niro and Pacino's desire to work together, with the idea for the film to be built around them. The film garnered significant interest for the pairing of De Niro and Pacino after the two had shared only one scene in Heat and had shared no scenes in The Godfather Part II. In September 2007, Brian Dennehy, John Leguizamo, Trilby Glover and Rob Dyrdek joined the cast.
Reception
Box office
Righteous Kill grossed $40.1 million in the United States and Canada, and $39.4 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $79.4 million.
In its opening weekend, Righteous Kill opened at #3, grossing $16.3 million, behind new releases Burn After Reading and The Family That Preys. Overture Films paid $12 million to acquire the rights to the film, and stated that they would be happy if it could theatrically gross $25 million in the United States. By comparison, Heat, which starred Pacino and De Niro in 1995, grossed over $180 million worldwide.
Critical response
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 18% of 146 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 4.2/10. The website's consensus reads: "Al Pacino and Robert De Niro do their best to elevate this dowdy genre exercise, but even these two greats can't resuscitate the film's hackneyed script." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 36 out of 100, based on 27 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable" reviews.
The Times included Righteous Kill on its 100 Worst Films of 2008 list.
Keith Phipps of The Onion's A.V. Club said, "The novelty of watching De Niro and Pacino team up wears off pretty quickly, [with them] trudging through a thriller that would have felt warmed over in 1988. Director Jon Avnet doesn't offer much compensation for the absent suspense."
James Berardinelli of ReelViews gave the film two stars out of four, saying, "This isn't just generic material; it's generic material with a dumb ending, and the director is a journeyman, not a craftsman. ... Its failure to live up to even modest expectations is a blow. There's nothing righteous to be found here."
Ken Fox of TV Guide also gave Righteous Kill a score of two stars out of four, saying, "The entire movie is one big build-up to a twist that, while not exactly cheating, plays an awfully cheap trick. To get there, writer Russel Gewirtz and director John Avnet sacrifice mystery, suspense, sensible editing and everything else one expects to find in a police thriller just to keep the audience off-guard. It's not worth it, and the first real pairing of De Niro and Pacino [since 1995’s Heat] is utterly wasted."
Claudia Puig of USA Today gave the film one-and-a-half stars out of four, saying, "By the time the movie reaches its protracted conclusion, it feels like a slog. Pacino has a few funny lines, as does Leguizamo, but not nearly enough to save the film from collapsing under the weight of its own self-righteous tedium."
Peter Travers of Rolling Stone gave Righteous Kill one star out of four, saying, "Some people think Robert De Niro and Al Pacino would be a kick to watch just reading a phone book. Well, bring on that phone book. Righteous Kill, a.k.a. The Al and Bob Show, is a cop flick with all the drama of Law & Order: AARP."
Home media
The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray on January 6, 2009. As of February 2009, 778,760 DVD units had been sold, gathering $16.9 million in revenue.
