Respect Authority

In a bout with swine flu earlier this week, I watched not one, but two recent Al Pacino movies, figuring, as many (movie producers included) must, that at the very least, Pacino’s inclusion in a film means it couldn’t possibly be so awful as to not amuse me on my deathbed, whilst I am surrounded by used tissues and empty packets of Theraflu.

Oh, how wrong I was. Now, three days later, I find myself still trying to figure out what exactly happened in 88 Minutes, Pacino’s 2007 thriller about a forensic psychologist who gets a death threat from someone he presumes to be affiliated with a serial killer whose conviction was by no small measure secured through his expert testimony. Sounds complicated, right? You have no idea. Granted, I was in a medicinal daze and probably by no means qualified to decipher complex movie plots (I’m reminded of the time Aaron I tried to watch Kiss Kiss Bang Bang high and gave up after at least three attempts, each of which ended after the first five minutes with one of us going “Wait, what’s happening?”). That said, 88 Minutes didn’t need to be complicated.

The idea was simple enough. Pacino puts bad guy away, bad guy has large following of soft-hearted Americans who believe he didn’t really do it, Pacino’s credibility is called into question, another murder happens whilst the presumed serial killer is in jail, Pacino receives death threat, and an hour and 50 minutes of “action” ensues in which Pacino and a revolving door of females in supporting roles try to get to the bottom of things. Of course, throw in an almost obnoxiously large cast of red herrings, as identified for the audience through a series of “Oooh, creepy music, maybe this one’s the killer!” moments; along with Pacino’s character’s background (his younger sister was killed by a crazed murderer, who took guess how long to torture her), which in the end has very little to do with anything, and the long list of young women he appears to have slept with, each of them yet another “lady with a possible grudge” viewers are meant to remember.

Ultimately the writer got entirely too bogged down in what I imagine he thought was “character development” - when the reality is Al Pacino hasn’t played anyone other than himself in years. By the time the actual twist rolled around, I couldn’t have cared less who killed whom, so long as someone delivered a few choice moments of torture to the movie’s producers.

Which brings me to the second in my Pacino double-feature. By the way, I can hear what you’re thinking. Why wouldn’t I watch the classics, the Carlito’s Ways and Scarface? To which I say, because they weren’t on Starz between the hours of 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. on Tuesday June 9.

So although I made no effort to see it in theaters, some fundamental part of me was mildly excited about Righteous Kill, as I imagine most movie-lovers would be. Pacino. DeNiro. Cops. New York City. To be honest, I found it hard to believe that anything could really go wrong here — all the central elements were in place.

Everything went wrong. The movie is, though at this point I was drifting in and out of consciousness, about partners, one of whom is surreptitiously killing criminals who by one means or another manage to be acquitted of their crimes. The child molester who gets off on a technicality, the pimp who evades prosecution, and so forth. Hence the “righteous” part. And although there’s certainly some pleasure to be had from watching one of acting’s finest shoot unapologetic evil-doers at point-blank range, the premise is revealed in the beginning - making the rest of the movie a kind of unnecessary re-telling of each justified murder. The dialog between Pacino and DeNiro is predictably amusing, like Bad Boys for old white men, but not enough to carry the rest of the film. In fact, I’d rather just see a Bad Boys movie starring the two of them (Hint hint, Michael Bay.)

I know there’s no age limit on acting (think Clint Eastwood) but perhaps, at 69, Pacino might consider applying some higher standards when deciding which scripts to have read out loud to him by able-bodied assistants with 20/20 vision and a penchant for the elderly. Which isn’t to say Robert DeNiro is vying for an Oscar with 2011’s Little Fockers, but at least I’ll be laughing with him.