Righteous, killer cast shoots itself in the foot

    Sometimes a film's cast simply sounds too good to be true. When multiple high-profile stars get together in a film, it can go one of two ways: It can go "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" (1969), or it can go "Ocean's 12" (2004). "Righteous Kill," the new cop film starring heavyweights Robert De Niro and Al Pacino and directed by Jon Avnet, falls squarely in the latter category.
    Pacino and De Niro play veteran NYPD cops Rooster and Turk respectively. A flashy opening credit montage features the two men at a firing range, interspersed with each man at his pastime of choice: De Niro is hotheadedly aggressive as he yells at an umpire at a softball game, while Pacino is cool and calculating, yet no less aggressive as he rants about Bobby Fischer during back-to-back chess-game victories.
    The men are filmed firing their guns — from handguns to automatic assault weapons — at a variety of angles as lights flash to make certain the audience understands that both cops are good shots and enjoy using their guns. These two facts are reiterated ad nauseam throughout the film.
    The plot, penned by "Inside Man" (2006) scribe Russell Gewirtz, depicts a series of murders targeting lucky criminals who escaped justice. While the plot shares some points with college favorite "Boondock Saints" (1999) and Showtime's serial killer show "Dexter," it lacks a defining touch. Murder weapons and a short, rhyming poem accompany each crime. Each of the victims has some connection to Turk and Rooster; although Turk is one of the lead investigators on the case, he quickly becomes a main suspect.
    The story lacks complexity due to a device, revealed in the first five minutes, which manages to take the steam out of three quarters of the movie. Instead of playing it as a straight mystery, the film displays a clip of one of the detectives confessing to the murder of 14 men during his 30 years of duty, including all of the murders that occur in the film. The entire film is structured as a flashback with the confession cutting in at various points. A series of contrived twists in the last half-hour spice things up a bit, but after being heavily forecasted for most of the film, the gimmicks are not very surprising.
    DeNiro's Turk is best described by Pacino as a "pit bull on crack." He runs around screaming and raging and having angry sex with a fellow detective on the force (played by Carla Gugino, one of two female roles in this testosterone-heavy film). Pacino's character spends his time calming Turk down and trying to one-up his friend, wasting precious screen time as well as the audience's patience.
    The supporting cast is, for the most part, extremely talented and over-utilized. The usually stiff John Leguizamo pulls through as Detective Perez, and Donnie Wahlberg deftly plays Detective Riley. Gugino holds her own in a predominantly male cast, but in an odd third-act twist, she flounders as a woman out for justice. Curtis Jackson (50 Cent) is typecast as a drug dealer-turned-rapper and club owner, but stumbles over many of his lines and generally drags down his scenes. Finally, in an interesting bit of casting, Rob Dyrdek of MTV's "Rob and Big" plays the first murder victim, a skateboarding pimp (yes, seriously) named (wait for it) Rambo.
    While the film does have some enjoyable aspects and an exciting final quarter, it drags in the middle, and lazy cinematography and editing bring the mood down a bit too far. The beginning and various scenes throughout the film are shot in a glitzy, stylized manner, reminiscent of action films such as "Bad Boys" (1995) and most Vin Diesel vehicles, while much of the rest is shot as a straightforward drama, a style that works much better in this particular instance.
    "Righteous Kill," with its pedigree and star-studded cast, should have been much more than simply an average cop film. Some tweaks to the plot and a shorter running time would have helped tremendously, but that isn't to say that it isn't watchable. Still, "Righteous Kill" is most likely destined to end up no more than a somewhat entertaining footnote on the résumés of two great actors.