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Righteous Kill is a 2008 American crime thriller film with elements of a buddy cop film directed by Jon Avnet, and starring Robert De Niro and Al Pacino. It is one of only two movies (the other is Heat) in which De Niro and Pacino appear together in the same scenes. Righteous Kill also features John Leguizamo, Carla Gugino, Donnie Wahlberg, Brian Dennehy, and Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson. The film was released in the United States on September 12, 2008.
Police psychologists review recordings of a man (Robert De Niro), who states his name as Detective David Fisk, the "Poetry Boy" killer. The Poetry Boy earned the moniker for his modus operandi of murdering criminals and leaving short poems with their bodies. Fisk reveals that he looks up to his partner of almost 30 years, Tom Cowan (who the audience is led to believe is the character portrayed by Al Pacino), and considers him to be his role model of how a cop should be. Pacino's character is known by the nickname "Rooster" and De Niro's by "Turk," and they are referred as such outside of the recordings.
These recordings provide a narrative, and the film opens with the tenth victim, a drug dealer named Robert "Rambo" Brady (Rob Dyrdek). Turk and Rooster investigate the murder with the less-experienced Detectives Corelli (Carla Gugino), Perez (John Leguizamo), and Riley (Donnie Wahlberg). When they find a poem on the body, they link it to the Poetry Boy.
As Poetry Boy murders acquitted rapist Jonathan Van Luytens and Father Connell, a Catholic priest and child molester (children including Poetry Boy himself), tension builds between Turk, Corelli, and Perez. Turk is now living with Corelli, who happens to be Perez's ex-girlfriend. Poetry Boy assaults an attempted fourteenth victim, Russian mobster Yevgeny Magulat, but when he is found to not have died, he attacks Perez and Corelli. Perez and Riley suspect Turk of being Poetry Boy due to his markmanship skills and psych evaluations, so they arrange a secretly supervised meeting between Turk and a drug dealer Marcus "Spider" Smith (50 Cent) (during which Turk supposedly must kill him). However, Turk proves his innocence during an encounter with this drug dealer as he has the "wrong" gun and humiliating but obviously inappropriate poem. After Perez and Riley leave the scene unsatisfied, Rooster kills Spider. During this scrape Rooster inadvertently drops his diary.
Turk stumbles upon and reads Rooster's journal, Rooster claims Spider as Poetry Boy's fourteenth victim. Rooster puts Turk in front of a video camera and forces him to read the journal. At this point, it is realized that the recordings from the film's beginning and therefore the narration merely set Turk up as a red herring, and Rooster is the actual Poetry Boy. Turk's name is actually Tom Cowan, and Rooster's David Fisk. It turns out that Rooster lost his faith in justice when Turk, an otherwise "righteous" cop, planted a gun at the house of acquitted child molester and murderer Charles Randall (Frank John Hughes), convicting him. This leads him to taking justice into his own hands.
When Turk finishes, he chases Rooster to a construction site. Rooster fires aimlessly to convince Turk to report that the Poetry Boy is assaulting a police officer, resisting arrest, and fleeing, but Turk resists. When Rooster takes aim at Turk, Turk fires, striking Rooster in the chest. He calls for an ambulance, however Rooster begs him to withdraw the ambulance. After some hesitation, Turk calls off the ambulance, allowing Rooster to bleed to death. He is last shown coaching a Police Athletic League baseball team as Corelli looks on.
