More than 10 years ago, two of the most accomplished actors of their generation, Robert De Niro and Al Pacino, starred together for the first time in "Heat," a complicated cop/big caper flick in which Pacino played a detective and De Niro his opposite number, the leader of a sophisticated gang of criminals. Miles of film and thousands of bullets later, the two return in "Righteous Kill," this time both of them playing detectives, Turk (De Niro) and Rooster (Pacino), in the New York City Police Department, and both also in more ways than one playing each other.

The picture depends upon several major plot situations and narrative threads, one involving the search for a serial killer, another a problem of internal policing of the force itself, and another above all, concentrating on the relationship between the two policemen, two of the best detectives on the force, friends as well as partners. The killer they seek departs from the usual pattern of his kind, not motivated by some sexual kink, but instead hunting and shooting a succession of felons - drug dealers, pimps, murderers, rapists - all of whom have in one way or another evaded their proper punishment. Both detectives know the victims and their records and both, not surprisingly, believe the crimes are "righteous kills," perfectly justified acts for which the killer deserves a medal.

As the killings multiply and their investigation progresses, the methods and evidence convince the detectives that the vigilante they're hunting is also a cop. Their research also uncovers some connections to a case they handled in the past, in which they planted evidence to convict a child rapist of a crime he did not commit. That conspiracy suggests to the audience that one or both of the two detectives may be the murderer.

When two other detectives, played by Donnie Wahlberg and John Leguizamo, working some of the serial murders begin to suspect Turk and Rooster, who also actually suspect each other, the picture edges into a study in suspicion and paranoia, showing that no one can be trusted, that anyone can be guilty. As "Righteous Kill" follows the two pairs of partners following parallel paths, it also allows for the possibility that Wahlberg and Leguizamo committed the crimes.

The director's method creates a generalized suspicion, transforming the nature of the film itself, so that the cop flick turns into a serial killer movie, then into a vigilante film, and then into a genuine mystery. He begins with a videotaped statement from De Niro that increasingly resembles a confession, then weaves a voice-over narrative intermittently throughout the picture, sometimes alternating the voices of the two detectives. He employs the subjective camera in numerous shots from the point of view of the unidentified killer, then intercuts between the two separate investigations, maintaining a continuous and very clever process of deception throughout.

The frequent flashbacks, the quick cuts and cross-cutting, the constant use of tight closeups provide a kind of jumpy dynamism, appropriate to the nervous rhythms of the city itself and the confusion of the central mystery. The closeness of their professional and personal relationship and the similarities of their appearance, attitude, language, and method intensify the identification of the two. All those similarities increase the obfuscation, so that despite the apparently obvious clues, the final solution still comes as a shock and a surprise.

Aside from its largely successful presentation of its plot, "Righteous Kill" of course depends for much of its appeal on the presence of De Niro and Pacino. Both men have spent a considerable portion of their careers playing either cops or gangsters, so they can probably perform their roles here in their sleep, but neither displays any boredom or failure of commitment.

The two men work together as well as their screen characters, conveying convincingly the competence, toughness, cynicism, and even the sadness that accompanies their work, and the despair that results from the solution of their investigation. Their ability to generate intensity through some understated lines and gestures, their resolute underplaying precisely captures the sad but satisfying ambiguity of "Righteous Kill." 

Righteous Kill

(R), directed by Jon Avnet

Now playing