Metacritic Film

Righteous Kill

Starring Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, 50 Cent, Donnie Wahlberg, and Carla Gugino

MPAA RATING: R for violence, pervasive language, some sexuality and brief drug use

Overture Films
Crime  |  Drama  |  Mystery
100 minutes | Color
USA
Released In Theaters September 12, 2008

A serial murderer walks the streets of Manhattan, targeting violent felons who have fallen through the cracks of the judicial system. All the victims are suspected criminals whose bodies are found accompanied by a four-line poem justifying the killing. The killer’s mission is to do what the cops can’t do on their own—take bad guys off the streets for good. When a notorious pimp becomes one of the killer’s victims, highly decorated detectives Turk and Rooster are called in to investigate. This case could easily be the biggest one in their 30 years on the force. With the unwitting help of a local drug dealer the detectives follow what few clues they have, but their search soon turns inward, eventually leading them full circle as they realize the killer may be one of their own. (Overture Films)

WRITTEN BY
Russell Gewirtz

DIRECTED BY
Jon Avnet

Overall Metascore

This is a weighted, normalized average of all individual scores given by critics, on a scale of 0 (worst) to 100 (best).

36 / 100

Critic Reviews

70 Film Threat
I'd like to recognize Russell Gewirtz for a screenplay that boasts humor, an impressive plot twist, and for setting up plenty of room for De Niro and Pacino to get their grooves back in order.
60 Salon.com
Despite how easy it would be to write off Righteous Kill as one sorry excuse for lazy filmmaking, there is still something utterly mesmerizing in the palpable chemistry between the two leading men.
50 Philadelphia Inquirer
A twisty, turny and ultimately silly thriller from "Inside Man's" Russell Gewirtz.
50 The Hollywood Reporter
An ordinary cop picture boosted by two charismatic superstars but hindered by its dearth of surprises.
50 San Francisco Chronicle
A relatively harmless movie that becomes killing-a-mockingbird sinful for what it does to its leads.
50 TV Guide
The entire movie is one big build-up to a twist that, while not exactly cheating, plays is an awfully cheap trick.
50 Washington Post Neely Tucker
It's astonishing how much intensity and focus these two have lost, but the picture itself is not all that bad -- if you can get the collapsing-career thing out of your head.
50 The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
In pairing the two icons, Righteous Kill is definitely an event. What it isn't is much of a movie. Such a waste.
50 Los Angeles Times
Righteous Kill's script is credited to "Inside Man's" Russell Gewirtz, and you wonder how the sleek, nuanced flow of that earlier movie evaded this one.
50 Miami Herald
The movie, which has more than 10 credited producers, feels like one of those slick, for-the-money projects Hollywood studios cook up via graph charts and marketing surveys.
50 ReelViews
Its failure to live up to even modest expectations is a blow. There's nothing righteous to be found here.
50 Chicago Reader Joshua Katzman
Watching these old pros play longtime buddies is a pleasure, especially since they're together in most scenes. But this thriller by Jon Avnet (88 Minutes) is mostly by the numbers, and its surprise ending, though effective, feels somewhat forced.
45 NPR
Slack, morally ambiguous, decidedly sub-Dexter serial-killer-cop story that's been cooked up for them (De Niro/Pacino).
42 The Onion (A.V. Club)
Trudging through a thriller that would have felt warmed over in 1988, the pair investigate a serial killer.
40 Variety
Unable or unwilling to match the visceral chops and moral provocations of superior serial-killer chillers, Righteous Kill is content to be a twisty genre exercise; it's like "Seven" as reimagined by M. Night Shyamalan.
40 The New York Times
A clutter of recycled cop-movie and serial-killer film clichés.
40 New York Daily News
Of the supporting performances, Gugino, Leguizamo and Wahlberg offer solid turns, but are let down by dialogue.
40 Time
Instead of the meeting of maestros at the top of their form, Righteous Kill has the feeling of Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds facing off for the first time in an exhibition game. It's like Old Timers' Day at the Motion Picture Home.
40 LA Weekly Tim Grierson
It's a sad state of affairs when the best news about Righteous Kill is that it isn't awful.
38 Baltimore Sun
Under the guidance of Jon Avnet, they're (De Niro/Pacino) both playing New York police detectives - partners, no less - in the cop-and-serial-killer tale Righteous Kill, and they're thunderously mediocre.
38 Boston Globe Jason Matloff
When actors are as great as De Niro and Pacino, watching them in a movie like Righteous Kill is deadly.
38 USA Today
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.
30 The New Yorker
The movie is hectic, exhausting, and baffling. It's an embarrassment.
25 Entertainment Weekly
It's not much fun to see these two reduced to "Mad TV" parodies of themselves.
25 Rolling Stone
Righteous Kill, a.k.a. The Al and Bob Show, is a cop flick with all the drama of "Law and Order: AARP." This movie defines drag-ass.
25 New York Post
A slow-moving, ridiculous police thriller that would have been shipped straight to the remainder bin at Blockbuster if it starred anyone else.
20 Austin Chronicle
There's nothing righteous about this tired and tiresome good cop/bad cop NYPD procedural.

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