What Not to Watch

De Niro

Pacino

They are considered to be two of the greatest actors of all time and coming soon to a theater near you, they will be on screen together. Righteous Kill will not force on screen sparks by creating an improbably coffee shop scene the way Heat did, this time the top billed actors will be paired throughout the movie…emoting together for the first time.

Pardon me if I don’t rush right out and watch it. Personally I find De Niro and Pacino to be more than a little irritating. Many believe that Pacino’s best work was in Scarface and since then he has been consistently praised and rewarded for delivering more over-the-top performances. It’s almost as is he suffers from some strange form of Tourette’s syndrome that causes him to bark out lines and place heavy emphasis on stray words throughout his dialogue.

De Niro has been an insufferable ass for a long time. He’s seems so wrapped up in his Mafioso persona that every role comes of as an homage to Alec Baldwin’s famous parody of De Niro on Saturday Night Live. De Niro has become a clown. He’s an old guy who just doesn’t get it anymore. It’s too bad nobody has the guts to tell him.

I can predict exactly how this movie is going to work. De Niro will sneer at the camera while Pacino yells. They’ll both flex muscles in the movie and intimidate characters played by actors who are younger and much tougher than either of them. Donnie Wahlberg and 50 Cent will collaborate on the sound track which will be available on iTunes in time for Christmas.

Critics will be careful not to lambaste De Niro or Pacino. If they ruin the movie with their incessant hamming the blame will fall on the director, Jon Avnet. Supporting players will take criticism for not being strong enough to off set the intensity of the two headliners.

Hollywood seems to have this ridiculous fascination with older actors. Not actresses, mind you, but actors. Old guys like De Niro and Pacino never seem to find themselves marginalized by their age even though it’s unlikely that two cops pushing 70 would be doing anything other than planning a golf outing from behind a desk. What’s worse is that geezers like De Niro and Pacino end up having 35 year-old actresses cast as their love interests. Honestly, I think porn is a more admirable pursuit than being caught in a love scene with one of these over-the-hill hacks.

It’s sad because there are a number of phenomenal actors who are in their late 40s and early 50s \who would be more convincing as crusty old cops. The best part about it is these actors aren’t has high on themselves as guys like De Niro and Pacino are. You might end up with a good movie on your hands if you took a leap and cast more realistic actors.

The fact that De Niro and Pacino are in this movies convinces me that it’s not a very good script. When actors of this magnitude are cast the studio is usually trying to blind us with star power so we don’t realize that the plot was flawed and that the dialogue was clunky. Most fans are so enthralled by the audacity of the leading actors that they don’t really stop to consider the fact that the movie stunk.

Well I’m not buying it. I’ve seen enough of De Niro and Pacino over the past 10-15 years to know that their best work is well behind them. Maybe I’ll catch this flick in about four years when it works its way down to basic cable but I won’t be counting the days until that happens.