Robert De Niro & Al Pacino back together on screen!

250px-pacinodeniro.jpgYou've all seen Michael Mann's classic action movie Heat right? Of course you have, it's one of the coolest movies of the 90's but one scene always disappointed me with the flick. That being the famous first screen moment between two of the biggest movies stars of the latter half of 20th century film... the great Robert De Niro and Al Pacino.

The two actors who ruled the screen in The Godfather Part II never shared a second together on film in the 1974 classic and they weren't ever to be in a film together again until Heat in 1995. The eventual scene between De Niro and Pacino in Mann's movie felt extremely forced and contrived to me. I know that probably sounds an obvious statement when the movie's tagline was blatantly built around the gimmick...
From "The Godfather" to "Scent of a Woman".From "Raging Bull" to "Goodfellas".Two of America's celebrated superstars will finally collide.
but still the narrative purpose of the scene for the film's plot was so lacking. It's a cool moment, which works well on it's own and is superbly acted... but it could have been so much better given a more meaningful reason to exist and personally it slows down what I believe to be a great movie, which would have benefited without it. The huge news from Variety today, is that they are going to give another go at a movie involving the two acting greats but this time they will share more than a couple of minutes of screentime. They are going to be in the whole god damn thing together as they play a pair of cops hunting down a serial killer! The $60 million Indie flick Righteous Kill is the movie in question, written by Russell Gerwitz and to be directed by Jon Avnet... who recently helmed Pacino in the action thriller 88 Minutes which I don't think even received a notable cinema release anywhere. Come on, Pacino and De Niro as buddy cops on the hunt for a serial killer. If your not excited about this then your status as a film geek must surely be in question!!
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Matt Holmes is the co-founder of What Culture, formerly known as Obsessed With Film. He has been blogging about pop culture and entertainment since 2006 and has written over 10,000 articles.