As busy I get from time to time, I find that I can't see every movie under the sun, leaving my friends and colleagues to fill in the blanks for me. As poetically as I think I wax about movies on this website as a wannabe critic, there are other experts out there. Sometimes, it inspires me to see the movie too and get back to being my circle's go-to movie guy. Sometimes, they save me $9 and you 800+ words of blathering. In a new review series, I'm opening my site to friend submissions for guest movie reviews.
TODAY’S CRITIC: Lafronda Stumn
Lafronda Stumn is a student at Madisonville Community College and intends to graduate with an Associate's degree in Associate of the Arts. She plans on earning a Bachelors Degree in Motion Picture Studies and English at Wright State University. Her favorite Directors are Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, and Spike Lee, and her favorite actors are Al Pacino, Denzel Washington, Meryl Streep, and Halle Berry. Lafronda contacted this page looking for a place to get published and I enjoy giving people that very kind of opportunity. This is her ninth guest review for Every Movie Has a Lesson. Welcome back, Lafronda!
HER REVIEW: Righteous Kill
Righteous Kill stars two of the best actors of all time with Al Pacino and Robert De Niro. With this stellar cast, it couldn't possibly go wrong? Well, it does. You expect something great in-store in the film with these two stars like when you saw them in Michael Mann movie Heat.
The film starts subtly enough with two veteran detectives, David and Rooster (DeNiro and Pacino). They are the very best of friends. They are disgusted, especially David, about a child killer, Charles Randall, being acquitted by a jury. David's character seeks vigilante justice by killing all of Randall's associates. Rooster, his partner, is supportive but has gone numb to so many killings over the years. Their superior officer puts them on leave after the ruined case and they’re ordered to be analyzed by the police to psychiatrists. This is when David takes matters into his own hands in dealing with Randall. David has a girlfriend and officer named Karen, who loves to have angry and rough sex with David.
There are two officers from a rival police station, Perez and Riley (John Leguizamo and Donnie Wahlberg), investigating Randall associates' serial killer. Despite being put on leave at work, David and Rooster secretly worked to solve the case. There are many clues where it could be one of those four cops being guilty of the crime. The movie has another character in the name of Spider (Curtis Jackson, "aka" 50 Cent) who knew Randall, and the cops try to set him up to reveal more info on who could be the real killer.
There are many problems with this film—the biggest one being that the twist toward the end is what you expect. There is little in this film that does surprise you. Another big problem is we don't care about either DeNiro and Pacino's characters, two people with no substantial character arcs. They’re one dimensional, so you would care what happens to the fate of these two- characters.
Carla Gugino plays a sex object, not a police officer. The characters of Perez and Riley are like the keystone cops. They don't seem competent to be police officers. Curtis Jackson is good, but I wish he had more screen time. The screenplay needed a great writer along the lines of Richard Price, David Mamet, or Quentin Tarantino for this film to be compelling to watch. The main actors and especially the audience deserve better.
Rating: **
CONCLUSION
Thank you again, Lafronda! You are welcome anytime. Friends, if you see a movie that I don't see and want to be featured on my website, hit up my website's Facebook page and you can be my next GUEST CRITIC!
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