Strong on testosterone, weak on script

Rating: 5/10 (4 April 2009)

The only thing that would separate this from being just another cops and robbers movie is the star power of Pacino and De Niro. But I just kept thinking of what a good movie these two could have been in rather than this routine outing that did not push them beyond the stereotypes that they themselves have helped create. The "just one more score" theme is getting a little threadbare too. We have seen Pacino and De Niro in these kinds of roles so often that I could not separate the actors from the characters they were playing.
So many plot elements just do not hold up. The relationship between De Niro and the lovely Amy Brenneman is unbelievable. A young, gentle bookstore clerk is going to get mixed up with tough guy De Niro and not be just a little interested in what he does for a living? And sticks with him when she ultimately finds out what a snake he is? For all of De Niro's talent he can't play a tender love scene with Brenneman that is the least bit believable. In the big shootout between De Niro's gang of four, and what looked like the entire LA police force, we are to believe that two of De Niro's gang escaped? And so on.
The much ballyhooed scene between Pacino and De Niro has all of the impact of two emotionless middle-aged guys sitting across from each other at a table in a diner spouting lines like, "You do what you do, and I do what I do," and "I don't know how to do anything else." And then there is the "my balls are bigger than your balls" moment when each of the two allows as how he will have to take the other down if it comes to a standoff. This scene must account somewhat for why this movie is so popular with young males. The two share accounts of recurring dreams no less (a banquet table populated by dead people for Pacino and drowning for De Niro). There is an implication of bonding in this scene that I found to be a bit ridiculous.
We have extraneous side stories thrown in, like Pacino's suicidal stepdaughter and a substitute gang member that turns out to be a serial rapist/murderer on the side.
The score by Elliot Goldenthal is generic and transparently manipulative, designed to raise the tension level at appropriate places and frequently announcing how we are supposed to react to a scene.
This thing drags on for almost three hours until its inevitable showdown between De Niro and Pacino. There is little new here.