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ROBERT
DeNiro and Al Pacino—the names alone conjure a certain
kind of streetwise intensity, an acting style of
emotional soul-bearing right out of film’s ’70s heyday.
Both rather famously appeared, if separately, in The
Godfather Part II, and it wasn’t until the 1995 film
Heat that they finally arrived on together,
albeit briefly.
In
Righteous Kill, opening this fall, Pacino and DeNiro
at long last share the screen for a significant amount
of a movie’s running time. Coming from new studio
Overture Films and directed by veteran Jon Avnet (Fried
Green Tomatoes) from a screenplay by Russell Gewirtz
(The Inside Man), the latest outing with these
legendary actors finds them playing a pair of grizzled
New York City
cops. With its serial-killer through-line and
undercurrent of kinky sex, the film could come across as
a grubby, late-’90s erotic thriller were it not for the
two stars who have three Oscars between them, making
Righteous Kill something akin to watching two
virtuoso jazz musicians work their way around an old
standard.
Speaking
recently in his
West Los Angeles production offices, Avnet said it was the project’s mix of
lowdown genre and high-style acting talent that appealed
to him. “What I thought the twin masters were, and what
interested me, was that it’s a genre piece and you have
to satisfy the whodunit and the procedural elements, but
the purpose of that was to serve the characters and the
drama. And what better actors than Bob and Al to do a
character piece?”
As
someone who considers himself a fan of acting, Avnet
said the experience of watching Pacino and DeNiro at
work did not disappoint.
“In a
way, ‘master class’ is not a big enough word. I’ve
watched Al do numerous takes, and I’ve seen his
imagination turn into behavior in a way that is
astounding. That’s what makes him Al Pacino. I’ve
watched Bob do stuff that’s so small and then go large
in a way that catches you totally off-guard.
“They’re
both very opaque, you don’t know whether they’re going
to kiss someone or kill them. And that suspense is what
makes their performances so intense in the moment.”
Though
the actors may have their own trademarks—Pacino’s funky
bravado and DeNiro’s interiorized angst—in Righteous
Kill they seem to have transferred some of their
quirks back and forth as if by osmosis. Pacino brings
forward a strain of seriousness that he often steamrolls
over, and DeNiro looks to actually be enjoying himself.
Highlighting the actors’ interactions was Avnet’s main
goal, hoping for some on-screen alchemy. “They have very
different processes,” Avnet said. “Al is a trained
theatrical actor who can rehearse and rehearse and
improve and improve. Bob likes the spontaneity of coming
in and doing it. They adjusted to each other, but it’s
very different styles of working. Which is not that
atypical a problem for a director. Often some actors get
it all in the first take, some like eight or 10. You’re
always trying to deal with that.”
Avnet
found the best way to deal with the differing styles of
his stars was to just capture as much as he could simply
and directly, keeping them both in the frame whenever
possible.
“There
were no laws, there were no obvious conclusions,” he
said. “I wanted to shoot two-shots whenever possible,
because I was hoping their timing was going to be really
special and I wouldn’t have to tinker with it. I wanted
to allow them to play off each other. To be able to
watch two people who are great at what they do, you feel
a responsibility to observe and appreciate it and, to
whatever extent possible, let it brand itself on your
brain and your soul, and then to share it. There’s a
tendency to think what they do is easy, but there’s a
lot of work that goes into it.”
Making a
movie that will invariably be mentioned in the same
breath as The Godfather Part II and Heat,
films frequently given the “modern classic” sobriquet,
as well as following in the footsteps of directors
Francis Ford Coppola and Michael Mann might seem
daunting to some, but not for Avnet.
“You
don’t do this job if you’re not used to pressure and
dealing with anxiety and anxious people,” he said. “I
happen to be a fan of Michael Mann’s, I enjoyed Heat
and I really enjoyed the big scene with Bob and Al
together. This kettle of fish is a whole movie of the
two of them.
“When
you say they’re good, it’s not like they’re doing
Shakespeare, they’re playing New York City detectives;
they are as New York as it gets. DeNiro and Pacino the
way you want to see them.” Sounds like Overture’s found
its tag line. |
