Back in the day, actors Al Pacino and Bobby De Niro could set a movie projector afire. "The Godfather." "Dog Day Afternoon." "Mean Streets." "Taxi Driver." "Serpico." "Raging Bull." It was frightening.

This was the golden age of American cinema, when there was enough leftover energy in the air that you could make a buddy-cop movie in Gotham without either of the two and still come up with "The French Connection."

Fast-forward to today, when movie stars Pacino and De Niro share scenes for only the second time, and we find out that they light up "Righteous Kill," a serviceable buddy-cop movie in Gotham, with just enough firepower to make the projector flicker along in B-movie fashion. It's astonishing how much intensity and focus these two have lost, but the picture itself is not all that bad -- if you can get the collapsing-career thing out of your head.

Turk (De Niro) and Rooster (Pacino) are aging detectives who think retirement is an early death. They are still lethal on the firing range, Turk has a rough-sex thing with Karen Corelli, a much younger evidence tech (the engaging Carla Gugino), and the men hack it out in the precinct gym with a pair of younger detectives, Perez and Riley (John Leguizamo and Donnie Wahlberg). Turk is also happy to beat the snot out of Spider, a Harlem club owner. (This is 50 Cent, billed here as Curtis Jackson. I think this means he's thinking of himself as an actor now. Uh-oh.)

--Neely Tucker (Sept. 12, 2008)

Contains violence, pervasive language, some sexuality and brief drug use.