"Righteous Kill" **1/2 (out of four): At last, Robert De Niro and Al Pacino star in a film together. Too bad it's a fairly run-of-the-mill cop drama with an ending you'll see coming from miles away.

In the great pantheon (and, yes, there is one) of missed movie-pairing opportunities ("Freddy vs. Jason", "Alien vs. Predator") few are as mourned as that of Robert De Niro and Al Pacino. Ever since they shared a screen, but not a scene, in "The Godfather, Part II", the two actors - whose careers followed a similarly spectacular trajectory - seemed destined to headline a film together. Alas, the closest we'd come to seeing the two square off was 1995's over-blown Michael Mann crime thriller "Heat". And even then, they only shared the screen for two scenes. The third time, it would seem, is the charm for these two venerable actors. Director Jon Avnet unites the two as life-long NYPD partners in "Righteous Kill", a decidedly run-of-the-mill police thriller overly enamored with its own twisty ending.

Read more on BigPictureBigSound...