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De Niro, Pacino are lackluster; 'Heat' was better
By Rich Heldenfels
Beacon Journal popular culture writer
Published on Sunday, Jan 04, 2009
When Al Pacino and Robert De Niro appeared together in the movie Heat in 1995, it was an event.
When they appeared together in Righteous Kill in 2008, not so much.
In 1995, Pacino and De Niro were still ranked among the best actors going. Pacino had finally gotten his long-expected Oscar. De Niro had two. Their credits included some of the best movies of all time, and one of those greats was The Godfather, Part II, in which each acted, though not in the same scenes.
So Heat, a marvelous crime film directed by Michael Mann, was something of a landmark, and it built carefully to the moment when the two actors, one playing a cop and one playing a crook, finally faced off against each other. And it was for the most part worth the wait.
So now we come to Righteous Kill, which lands on store shelves on Tuesday (Anchor Bay, $29.98 on standard DVD, $39.98 in high-definition Blu-ray). De Niro and Pacino waited 13 years to work together again, and the movie finds them playing opposite each other from early on. But the movie did not do well at the box office, and Rotten Tomatoes' critics gave it just a 21 percent favorable rating. Why?
Well, it's not all that interesting a movie, for starters, a police thriller that is so sleepy that within about 10 minutes, I was thinking about hitting the scene index and jumping to the end.
But the film was also problematic for moviegoers because the stars' reputations have faded considerably. De Niro has made his biggest mark in recent years in mildly amusing screen comedies. Pacino has also taken on less interesting projects, such as Ocean's 13, and a certain hamminess has infected a lot of his acting.
You might also speculate that, in a business where youth is considered key to box-office success, De Niro is 65 and Pacino three years older. But age doesn't seem to have hurt 78-year-old Clint Eastwood, whose reputation as an actor and director continues to grow. Or 71-year-old Jack Nicholson. Or 66-year-old Harrison Ford as long as he puts on Indiana Jones' hat.
Instead, De Niro and Pacino do not seem to choose projects well, either separately or together. So you may want to see Righteous Kill simply to watch the two acting lions prowl, or to check out the DVD extras (including director's commentary and a making-of segment). But there are plenty of better places to watch them, including The Godfather, Part II and Heat.
Another actor whose career is rather puzzling is Nicolas Cage, and this week's object of puzzlement is Bangkok Dangerous (Lionsgate, $29.95 on a single disc, $34.98 on a two-disc special edition, $39.99 on two-disc Blu-ray). Heck, his hair alone is a mystery in this thriller. But before you see it, you may want to find the original Bangkok Dangerous, the Asian action film that was Americanized for the Cage production. It's also available on DVD, for about $10.
On the TV side, the big item on Tuesday is Battlestar Galactica: Season 4.0 (Universal, 10 episodes plus the extended version of Battlestar Galactica: Razor movie, $49.98). There are sundry extras, all building the already big anticipation of the show's final run of episodes, which begins on Sci Fi Channel on Jan. 16.
In another case of DVD-TV cross-promotion, Showtime's Secret Diary of a Call Girl begins its second season on Jan. 18 — and the first season hits DVD on Tuesday (Lionsgate, eight episodes, $29.98).
And in one of those peculiar cases of DVD outpacing screen presentations, the Kevin Kline production of Cyrano de Bergerac will go on sale Tuesday, the day before it airs on PBS' Great Performances.
Down the DVD road: Captains and the Kings, the 1976 NBC miniseries starring Richard Jordan, will finally make it to DVD on Jan. 20. . . . Lakeview Terrace, starring Samuel L. Jackson, arrives Jan. 27. . . . The Librarian: Curse of the Judas Chalice, the third of the TNT movies starring Noah Wyle, is due on Feb. 24.
Rich Heldenfels writes about popular culture for the Beacon Journal and in the HeldenFiles Online blog at http://heldenfels.ohio.com. He can be reached at 330-996-3582 and rheldenfels@thebeaconjournal.com.
When Al Pacino and Robert De Niro appeared together in the movie Heat in 1995, it was an event.
Get the full article here.
Comments
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akron, oh
Posted 03:01 PM, 01/04/2009
too bad Dinero and pacino flopped.is it because these young criticsdon't know sup.racy really wants to know(@@)
