De Niro and Pacino are unquestionably a part of that top one percent with unparalleled talent — which is why it’s so baffling how unbearably bad they both are in ‘Righteous Kill’.

Talent is a funny thing. A fortunate few — born with some innate gift, as if Jesus and Apollo high fived at their conception to birth natural genius — make brilliance look effortless. A few more are able to gain mastery through a lifetime of dedication most mortals cannot match. They tend to end up hermits living in the south of France to avoid contamination from the morass of humanity, surfacing only to present efforts that blow the rest of us out of the water. Anyone else who pursues creative work eventually has to face the fact that, most likely, they do not fit into either of these groups, and will at some point hit their natural talent ceiling. Not everyone can write the great American novel, record a timeless song, or make The Godfather Part II. It just isn’t going to happen.

Al Pacino and Robert De Niro did make The Godfather Part II, probably the best movie ever. Between them they’ve starred in at least a dozen other outright classics on top of that. Both are unquestionably a part of that top one percent with unparalleled talent — which is why it’s so baffling how unbearably bad they both are in Righteous Kill.

Success has many fathers, which is why no one would give them sole credit for making their past movies so successful. They’ve worked with greats like Coppola and Scorcese to make a lot of their best work; even Anthony Anderson was pretty good in The Departed. Equally true is that failure is an orphan, and blaming these two entirely for the utter lifelessness of Kill would only be half right. Writer Russel Gewirtz and Director Jon Avnet necessarily share some of the blame. Gewirtz’s Inside Man was solid if a little stiff, and without much else to his name, expectations can’t be too high going in. Avnet has more credits as a producer than a director, including the luminary Mighty Ducks trilogy, so his vision is what you might call unproven. With the universally panned 88 Minutes being his only other time at the helm of a major film in ten years, the lion’s share of the blame should fall on him for getting such lackluster performances out of two of the greatest living actors.

Pointing the finger misses an important point, though. This movie isn’t just disappointing in a ‘they could have done better’ way. It’s terrible. As in, they should be ashamed of themselves. As in, fighting the urge to walk out in the first hour was difficult, despite free admission and Sour Patch Kids, which normally make movies better. Even Tenacious D and the Pick of Destiny, by no means a masterpiece, was pretty enjoyable with low expectations, no entry fee, and delicious candy.

For this De Niro and Pacino have to bear part of the burden. These are actors known for lifting movies up, not dragging them down. Totally average movies like Meet the Parents or The Devil’s Advocate were not fantastic, but were improved by talented actors making the most of their roles. In Righteous Kill, even without competent direction, these two should have been able to make their characters strong within the confines of a clichéd and flat cop story. Instead, they phone in their roles, not even bothering to play the caricatures of themselves the film called for. They deliver bad dialog as if punching the clock until they can go home and get back to reading the paper on the porch of Scowling Acres Home for Elderly Actors.

Because more than anything else, that’s what this film feels like: passing time until retirement. Both are probably too old to be playing hardened cops, but are starring together here to cash in on their years of machismo. A scene in the precinct’s weight room makes you feel sorry for the De Niro of today having to pass off as a weightlifting enthusiast, obviously decades past his Cape Fear physique. Pacino trying to create sexual tension with Carla Gugino (De Niro’s implausible love interest, which I’ll get back to) is laughable because of the visible lack of attraction. Nothing fits the way it should, because the two of them shouldn’t have taken this movie in the first place.

Older actors do their best work when they act their age. If these two put themselves into something akin to Nicholson’s About Schmidt, Eastwood’s Unforgiven or Million Dollar Baby, they could still be making the best movies of their careers. Even Bill Murray reinvented himself to reflect the reality that he’s not a loveable young goofball anymore, but a quirky, insecure older gentleman, and has delivered his most standout roles at this stage. The aging tough guy is a terribly interesting character  – see Tony Soprano’s recuperation from his gunshot — and this movie was not about that at all. They pass themselves off as grizzled without acknowledging they’ve obviously passed their prime, and by waving off that fact, the movie falls even flatter.

Which is not to say that it would have been saved by casting two younger, tougher cops in these roles. Not to spoil a movie you should never bother seeing, but the story takes unnecessary sidesteps throughout. Gugino’s character is a crime scene forensics agent with a fetish for rough sex, which adds nothing whatsoever to the story except squeamishness when focused on the elderly De Niro. The two young cops trying to uncover the crooked deeds of the older two are essentially waved off before the climax, after chasing down red herrings that were openly identified as such before being allowed to serve their purpose as diversions. And the big ‘twist ending’ would only have redeemed the movie if the preceding hour and a half were not so intent on making you not care how it ended, as long as it ended soon.

The real disappointment isn’t that this is an utterly garbage movie though; shitty cop movies come out every year and are easily ignored by everyone except the suckers who see movies starring rappers (oh, wait, 50 Cent was the bad guy in this one too, in a real soul-searching role as a drug-dealing club owner). The letdown is that two talented, respected actors chose to essentially disregard their gifts and take a poorly written, lazily directed project instead of something that challenged and utilized their abilities. 

It’s a simple fact that the world doesn’t have an abundance of actors of their caliber. We can only hope that for their next projects, as they wind down lifetimes of achievement, they pass on whittling away time in favor of making their final lasting marks.