They really shouldn't have done it. Rumblings of a shoddy script and director who perfectly embodies the word "hack" has seen the highly anticipated reteaming of Al Pacino and Robert De Niro in Righteous Kill, walk into a critical slaughtering, as critics take turns throwing verbal darts at the cop film. Rolling Stone likened the production to an episode of Law and Order, while Variety called it "groaningly predictable and needlessly convoluted". In other words, not a mole of the ass of Heat. The Coen Brothers have long been critical favourites though, and Burn After Reading is apparently a return to the whacky comedic shenanigans (tinted with visceral violence) of Fargo and most critics dug it. Newsday said it was "a chance to watch some top-notch actors jump their rails and head into terra bizarre"; while Reelviews said simply that it was a "hell of a good time". The Women wasn't press screened here and judging by the critical reaction stateside it's easy to see why. The Minneapolis Star Tribune pretty much summed the reaction of the scribes when it labelled it "a miscarriage of comedy". The Women opens here today; Righteous Kill on September 19th and Burn After Reading next month.
