Al Pacino: 5 Awesome Performances And 5 That Sucked

... And 5 Performances That Sucked

5. Rooster - Righteous Kill

Well, everything Heat was, Righteous Kill isn't. The excitement was quite up there with 1995 levels but audiences were keen to see the two greatest actors of their generation share some serious screen time. What we got though was, well, average. It was just another cop film. Nothing more, and that's why it makes the list. Pacino could have delivered on a barnstorming scale but both he and De Niro sleepwalk through the film. The film opens with De Niro's 'Turk' confessing to the Poetry Boy killings, a murderer who leaves short poems with his victims which include morally repugnant characters such as acquitted rapists, assaulting priests and drug dealers. As time proceeds however, Turk discovers that the murderer is in fact his friend and partner of thirty years, Rooster (Pacino). The ending shows Turk's earlier confessions was no more than a red herring as he was being forced to read Rooster's diary before an eventual fire-fight that sees Pacino grounded and dying. If this starred two average actors, it would have been a perfectly acceptable piece of DVD cop trash but to see two greats 'phone it in' is such a shame. Also, moving from Michael Mann to John Avnet clearly didn't get their juices flowing and Pacino, in particular, seems to be just going through the motions. Why these two signed up for such a weak script, no one will know. All we can be thankful for is that it's looking likely the two will reunite for Martin Scorcese's The Irishman next year with Pacino as Jimmy Hoffa.