Why Righteous Kill Will Kill Any Memory Of The Other DeNiro/Pacino Movie, Heat

When the new Robert DeNiro/Al Pacino movie Righteous Kill opens today, it has the potential to do more damage than ten Harmon Colliders creating black holes at the same time. That’s because the moment it was put into production, there was no doubt that the film would kill the legacy of one our favorite films, and the only other one to feature the two Italian acting legends on screen at the same time—Michael Mann’s Heat. Where Heat was a crime procedural of the highest order, pitting Pacino’s veteran detective Vincent Hanna against DeNiro’s criminal mastermind Neil McCauley, Righteous Kill seems like just another cops-and-robbers, by the book movie (and the reviews prove it). But why exactly are we so down on the movie before even seeing it? Well, let’s do a comparison…

• Pacino and DeNiro look older… A lot older: Filmed in 1995 before DeNiro started doing shit like Rocky and Bullwinkle and Pacino “acted” in films like S1MONE, Heat was their last performance before their subsequent roles became almost parodies of their life’s work. In Righteous Kill, they play “grizzled” detectives on the hunt for a serial killer. ZZZZZ. Each review we read say the same thing–they look too old to be working the case (and if you’re wondering that, look at the picture in this story). Back in ‘95 they looked just old enough to be veterans and not senior citizens. Too bad this pairing makes our last memory of their work together look cross between Grumpy Old Men and Zodiac.
• Director Jon Avnet is no Michael Mann: We might be biased because Mann is our favorite director working right now, but even so, Jon Avnet directed Fried Green Tomatoes… why is he doing a serial kiler thriller with two of America’s premier acting names? Resume includes the underseen Thief and Manhunter, Ali, Last of the Mohicans and the way underrated Miami Vice (have you seen it on cable lately?). What he brought to Heat made it the perfect film, a penultimate man’s man flick–a dude’s Beaches if you will.
• It has Brian Dennehy and 50 Cent in it: Uh no offense to Mr. Dennehy, whose last good film was Tommy Boy, and Fitty whose last um… good anything was… um… well let’s just say in the rapper/actor category, his collective film work’s been outdone by Tone Loc, who was a high line car thief in Heat. Mann’s film had Val Kilmer, Ashley Judd, Natalie Portman—in supporting roles!
• There’s no shootout scene that can top Heat’s: This one pretty much speaks for itself. The film’s denouement could come with DeNiro and Pacino in outer space shooting down alien ships (betcha didn’t see that one coming!), and it still wouldn’t be as awesome as this.


In the end, does this mean we’re not going to see it? Of course not. But it’s going to suck when any time we pop in the Heat DVD to watch what we feel is a masterpiece, within the first five minutes we’re going to think about the work they did in Righteous Kill, and that ain’t right.