“Most people respect the badge, but everyone respects the gun.”
What can be said of watching two salty veteran actors duke it out scene after scene that hasn’t already been opined in all of Hollywood without sounding like some kind of sycophant? These old tough guys only had one knock against them, they were just too old, if they did this script 10 years ago – maybe it would have been the knockout that we all would have drooled over going to see for the second or third time, but, not this time. It just never caught that full spark, like a firing pin that misses the mark off center by just enough to reduce the powder’s charge and throws the trajectory off. It was damned close though, but some elements detracted from what could have been an amazing film.
The scoring left a lot to be desired, I didn’t feel like the music matched the scenes in quite a few places which really detracts from the action and immersion factor. I wanted to give this one 5 stars and jump on the assumed bandwagon because of DeNiro and Pacino being together again in a gritty cop drama. I wanted to believe that yummy Carla Gugino would bed either of these dirty old veteran cops (with 30 years on the force, you do the math) but I just couldn’t.
That is the difference between American cinema and European cinema, had they chosen a more homely, aged actress to play her part, the film wouldn’t have suffered realism. You never would have been taken out of the story and reminded, oh yeah, this is surreal Hollywood. I am not taking anything away from any of the actor’s performances mind you, just felt that casting would have been better served finding an old gritty actress to play her part. But who wants to watch some aged actress in a romantic scene in America, John McCain maybe? (Sorry Mac, had to go there).
The story was unique and compelling, but some of the dialog was a little too cop-specific for me, maybe you have to carry a badge and gun to catch all the subtle cop-speak, but I didn’t mind that, because again these are two cops with 60 years experience on the streets of New York – I would hope their dialog would throw me for a loss occasionally. If you like old-fashioned cop dramas like Serpico and Dirty Harry, you will eat this one up, just do me a favor after you see it, plug in the name of an actress you might have believed in Gugino’s part.
