Righteous Kill

Posted on January 6, 2009 at 8:00 am

Has there ever been a cinematic pairing as eagerly anticipated as this one? Perhaps, but I can’t think of one that has been anticipated as long. Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro were both in 1974’s “The Godfather II” but their storylines encompassed different generations and there was no overlap. They both starred in “Heat” 21 years later, but shared only one scene. A mere 13 years after that, we finally get to see them together at last, starring in “Righteous Kill” as New York City detective partners investigating a serial killer who might be a cop. In real life, we have been waiting for a long time to see them together but in the parallel universe of the movie, DeNiro and Pacino have been partners for three decades and are each other’s closet friends and most respected colleagues. The pleasure of the movie is not in its predictable story but in seeing two of the greatest actors of our time play with and off of each other on screen, especially in the unimportant moments that give you a sense of a lifetime of connection and understanding.

That’s just about the only pleasure, though. The ending is predictable, the progress toward it derived from any of a dozen of interchangeable cop films. DeNiro and Pacino connect and compete, DeNiro cooling down and Pacino heating up. But we’re watching them, not their characters. They get some solid support from John Leguizamo and Donnie Wahlberg as a rival team of younger detectives with some personal and professional gripes, but Brian Dennehy looks worn in the under-written over-used character of the exasperated lieutenant and Carla Gugino’s forensic detective is a fantasy figure — too young and too kinky for this kind of set-up. Except for 50 Cent, who can’t act a smidge, the actors are game but the script is tired.

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Coming Attractions (September 2008)

Posted on September 5, 2008 at 10:00 am

There’s only one movie opening up this week, “Bankok Dangerous” with Nicolas Cage. That’s everything I know about it. It isn’t screening for critics, and that means the studio is pretty sure it won’t even get one good review.

But next week, things really pick up! I am very excited about “Righteous Kill,” starring Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino.

And I am even more excited about “Burn Before Reading,” from the Coen Brothers (“Fargo,” “No Country for Old Men”), starring George Clooney, Frances McDormand, and Brad Pitt.

Stay tuned!

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Trailers, Previews, and Clips

88 Minutes

Posted on April 18, 2008 at 7:24 am

C-

Lowest Recommended Age:	Adult
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for disturbing violent content, brief nudity and language.
Profanity:	Very strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking, including drinking to excess, smoking
Violence/ Scariness:	Serial killer who tortures and rapes his victims, grisly and graphic images, guns, bomb, knives
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	April 19, 2008

This non-thrilling thriller is so full of howlers and slippery plot holes that it should slide off the screen, which would be a relief to everyone there. It is at least 88 minutes too long.

Al Pacino plays Dr. Jack Gramm, a forensic psychiatrist-as-rock-star type who is a major celebrity and has a big fancy office and what appears to be an even bigger and fancier apartment. On the day that a serial killer he helped to convict is to be executed, he gets a call on his cell phone, telling him he has 88 minutes to live. Tick Tock. That’s a quote.

If you eliminate the first 88 things a rational person would do after receiving such a call, you might come up with the boneheaded shenanigans that follow as Gramm and his trusty (OR ARE THEY????) teaching assistant Kim (Alicia Witt) and office sidekick Shelley (Amy Brenneman) race around Vancouver (pretending to be Seattle) trying to figure out who might be behind all of this. Meanwhile, they struggle with clunky dialogue and a soundtrack that seems to have been lifted from some Quinn Martin production of the 1970’s. The outcome is both predictable and boring. And the movie is far too infatuated with the torture scenes so that we begin to wonder whose side it is on.

This is a huge waste of top talent and a huge waste of time for anyone unlucky enough to buy a ticket.

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Movies -- format

Insomnia

Posted on December 13, 2002 at 5:17 am

Detective Dormer (Al Pacino) can’t sleep. He and his partner, Hap Eckhart (Martin Donovan), are LA cops on special assignment to investigate the brutal murder of a teen-age girl in tiny Nightmute Alaska. Dormer may have been brought in for his expertise – eager young Nightmute detective Ellie Burr (Hilary Swank) tells him that she did a case study on one of the crimes he solved when she was in school. But Dormer and Eckhart may have been sent to Alaska to keep them out of the way of an Internal Affairs investigation. They are investigators and subjects of investigation at the same time.

This is just the first of many dualities and counterpoints in a complex, thoughtful thriller directed by Christopher Nolan, who gave us last year’s breakthrough hit about an amnesiac searching for his wife’s killer, Memento. Like that movie, “Insomnia” has an impaired main character. We cannot always trust what we see through his eyes.

Neither can he. Shortly after arriving in Nightmute, he asks to be taken to the local high school so that he can interview the dead girl’s boyfriend. The local detectives glance at each other and explain that it is 10 o’clock. Dormer looks out the window and says, “So what?” But it is 10 PM in a time of year when it is light all night long. Images of light and darkness haunt Dormer as he tries to escape the light so he can get some sleep and as he is forced to confront a darkness within himself that draws him both to the killers and to their eradication. It turns out that he and the killer will have a connection that, like the midnight sun, will keep him awake.

Nolan uses everything — the huge frozen vistas, the disorientation of perpetual sunlight, the fog that surrounds their first glimpse of the killer, the names (Dormer is “to sleep” in French, Ellie Burr is a detective whose dedication is a constant irritant). Dormer’s lack of sleep both deconstructs and constructs him. He enters a surreal state in which he is both more and less able to rely on his judgment.

Pacino, Swank, Donovan, and Maura Tierney as a sympathetic hotel proprietor are all first-rate. The movie’s weakest point is Robin Williams in the under-written role of the killer.

Parents should know that the movie has brief but grisly violence, a nude corpse, some creepy sound effects, and some very strong language. There are tense scenes and characters are shot and killed. Characters drink and smoke.

Families who see this movie should talk about the moral compromises Dormer makes and the ways in which people have to balance the ends and the means. What will Ellie do next? Why? Why is the town named “Nightmute?” What do you think about the girl who was killed?

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy No Way to Treat a Lady, Strangers on a Train and Memento.

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Crime Drama Thriller

The Insider

Posted on December 13, 2002 at 5:16 am

Jeffrey Wigand (Russell Crowe), a research scientist for a tobacco company, tells “60 Minutes” to reveal that the company is more aware of the addictive properties of nicotine than its executives claimed and in fact manipulated the delivery of nicotine. Lowell Bergman (Al Pacino), a producer of the show, promises to protect him. But CBS executives cut Wigand’s portion from the broadcast because they are worried about a potential lawsuit by the tobacco company.

Although the movie is based on a real-life incident, some of the names and details have been changed.

Wigand and Bergman are caught in parallel moral dilemmas. Both are loyal to their organizations until they witness what they perceive as acts of corruption. Both respond by making their stories public, resulting in struggle and sacrifice. The question is not one of disloyalty, but of conflicting loyalties. Wigand knows that telling the truth will hurt him and his family more than it hurts the tobacco company.

Families should be sure to discuss the point of view of the movie. Director/co-screenwriter Michael Mann very skillfully makes every shot and every note of the soundtrack help shape the story so that the viewer sees Bergman’s perspective. (One hint: the Bergman character is unerringly fair and honest.)

Families should discuss how the would movie be different if it was told from Wigand’s, Wallace’s, or the tobacco company’s point of view. And they should take a look at the tobacco company’s rebuttals to the movie, in full-page ads and on its website http://www.brownandwilliamson.com/1_hottopics/insider_frame.html.