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Artificial, implausible and inconsistent from scene to scene. But enough about Al Pacino's hairdo – how's the film?

Not much better, sadly. In the can for two years, Jon Avnet's – director of this month's Pacino/De Niro team-up Righteous Kill – thriller is riddled with unlikely contrivance, paper-thin characterisation and a copycat-killer plot that is itself derivative.

As the Seattle shrink given a literal deadline by a mystery caller, Pacino makes a real meal of his quest to discover which hot babe (Alicia Witt, Leelee Sobieski, Deborah Kara Unger) in his circle has got his number. Could it all have something to do with the guy on Death Row he helped put away nine years ago? Full of dreadful turns and awful dialogue (“There's been a breach in my most secure area!” mutters Al at one point), 88 Minutes is 107 too long.

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