Righteous Kill

Oh, if only Robert Aldrich were alive! The pulpmeister of the horror lollapalooza “What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?” certainly knew how to build a grand showcase for his corrugated divas (Bette Davis and Joan Crawford), while the hapless Jon Avnet hasn’t a clue what to do with his (Al Pacino and Robert De Niro). In “Righteous Kill” these two godheads of 1970s cinema go macho-a-macho with each other — furrowing brows, bellowing lines, looking alternately grimly serious and somewhat bemused — in a B-movie (more like C-minus) duet that probably sounded like a grand idea when their handlers whispered it in their ears.

Mr. De Niro and Mr. Pacino have squared off only once before on the big screen, in Michael Mann’s 1995 thriller, “Heat,” in which they spent most of the film in separate story lines, joined only by the parallel editing and a late-act, disappointingly anticlimactic meeting at a diner. They share far more face time in “Righteous Kill,” playing well-seasoned New York City Police Department detectives and long-term partners who take turns clucking at each other like hens while swaggering around town like gamecocks. True to strut, pouf and wattles, Mr. Pacino’s cop goes by Rooster, while Mr. De Niro is just Turk, which doesn’t appear to be short for Turkey, though it sure does help to pass the time if you think about it.

Time, alas, doesn’t so much pass in “Righteous Kill” as crawl, despite the usual overcutting, which tries to pump energy into the inert proceedings. Mr. Avnet, whose last movie was the clunker “88 Minutes” (one of Mr. Pacino’s worst), is not a natural director, to put it kindly. His handiwork is most evident in the unsteady tone, though to be fair it’s always hard to know who deserves most of the blame for this kind of star-struck, suit-crammed (eight producers, three executive producers, one co-producer) mush. Suffice it to say that everything from the camera placement to the cheap use of the consistently good, lamentably underemployed Carla Gugino is shoddy. (Note to Mr. Avnet: Yes, Ms. Gugino has breasts, but, really, her acting is more interesting.)

Like most actors, Mr. Pacino and Mr. De Niro need a strong hand, some kind of visionary authority to put them in their best light and prevent them from leaning on the tics and tricks — Mr. Pacino tends to turn up the volume, while Mr. De Niro glowers until he looks ready to pop — that now too often mar their performances. “Righteous Kill,” a clutter of recycled cop-movie and serial-killer film clichés (it’s hard to believe that the screenwriter, Russell Gewirtz, also wrote “Inside Man”), is far from their worst effort. And the two have some nice moments with each other and some of the other actors. Mr. Pacino seems to be genuinely moved during his final showdown with Mr. De Niro, or maybe he’s just a sweet sentimental fool.