"Righteous Kill" was supposed to give true film fans the Al Pacino/ Robert De Niro reunion they've been itching for since the Michael Mann-directed 1995 classic "Heat." Sadly this thriller is a crap dud from director Jon Avnet (who made crap dud "88 Minutes," also with Pacino) and has all the heat of a bad "Scooby Doo" episode mixed with old tired cliches about old tired cops that stank when "Hill Street Blues" was on the air.
The plot: Veteran NYC cops Turk (De Niro) and Rooster (Pacino) are on the hunt for a serial killer who's offing the city's most notorious scumbags. (Like cops would care.) Blame falls on seething fireball Turk, but ... did he do it? The answer is so brain dead simple, I kept hoping I was wrong. I wasn't.
De Niro looks like he has a kidney stone. Pacino at least keeps his "hoo-ha" acting on low broil. For awhile. Carla Gugino ("Karen Cisco") plays a forensics cop with a rape fetish who's bonking Turk. Her character, transplanted from a bad Sharon Stone film, is the most interesting mug on screen, even if she is a sick male fantasy.
A few bits of sharp dialogue in the script written by Russell Gewirtz help, but not much. The climax is as obvious, noisy and silly as the ending of "Heat" was stylish, understated and epic. The days when Pacino and De Niro were exciting are gone. They just need to quit. D-
But, De Niro is a god -- a delusional, pathetic, mamma's boy god -- in the brilliant "The King of Comedy," a 1982 pitch-black dark comedy jewel from director Martin Scorsese. De Niro literally morphs his body and larger-than-life essence to play the dweebish Rupert Pupkin, a wannabe comedian who plays to an audience of cardboard cut outs and wall art in the basement of his mother's house. Pure sick joy this film is.
Pupkin longs to be on a Johnny Carson-like show hosted by Jerry Langford (Jerry Lewis), the God to Rupert's Job. Kicking out a rabid "fan" from Jerry's limo, Rupert inserts himself into the life of his idol and seeks advice on how to win fame and glory. The kicker: Jerry is a lonely prick who cares for no one but himself, and when he blows off Rupert, our anti-hero is too dense to notice.
Instead, Rupert marches on, in love with Jerry and fame. The obsession turns nasty when Pupkin recruits his friend, the rabid fan (Sandra Bernhardt), from the limo, to help kidnap Jerry. The film is madly funny and nails the psyche of a deranged man who believes the world owes him and needs him.
Whole scenes, quite possibly the entire finale, take place inside Rupert's twisted sewer pipe mind, where he is loved and adored. De Niro gives a fully fleshed out performance, one that he would later piss away in the god-awful "The Fan." Pupkin is certainly all that I have described, but he's not to be hated. He is our deranged hero.
It's Lewis' acid blood Langford who's the true villain here. Lewis is a great actor. And what a great film to get us to root for a perv sicko. This is a sick mind screw of a film, worthy of a dozen viewings. A
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