By Anna Valmero
Inquirer.net

“Most people respect the badge. Everyone respects the gun.”

This line encapsulates the main theme of the film, Righteous Kill: the gun as the great equalizer among people—civilians and criminals.

Godfather vets Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro team up in the film as NYPD detectives David “Rooster” Fisk and Detective Tom “Turk” Cowan, respectively. They are tasked to work on a murder case and investigate if it is connected to a previous crime involving a serial killer—a crime they perceived to have been already solved.

A series of bloodshed involving unlawful citizens follows the murder case, and in the crime scene a gun with scribbled poetry versed with the details of the dead criminal’s crime were found. Talk about killing with style.

This brings us to the perennial argument of right and wrong, or our blurry notion of the two. Where is the thin line that separates the right and the wrong? Or, is the area just gray to begin with?

Most people struggle with their every day lives facing decisions that deem them more ‘good’ than ‘bad.’ Although the notion of good and bad is relative, when is it ‘right’ to take the life of another? For policemen assigned to create order and protect the people, when can and can’t they use their badge as a license to kill?

Fisk says, “As long as the ‘right’ people are killed.”

So what triggered the cop to turn vigilante and sweep lawbreakers off the streets? In Fisk’s case, how will one take it if a model policeman puts an innocent civilian behind bars?

The story progresses unraveling the intertwined morality questions that form the story’s theme and direction.

As my friend said, “You can never go wrong with Pacino and DeNiro in the movie.”