The two great actors don’t have much to work with in this film.

By Robert W. Butler

The two great actors don’t have much to work with in this film.

Two of the cinema’s most imposing figures — Robert De Niro and Al Pacino — share the screen but fail to light it up in “Righteous Kill,” a thriller far more interested in style than substance.

For more than 30 years Turk (De Niro) and Rooster (Pacino) have been NYPD partners. Turk is the volatile, short-tempered one; he’s been called “a pit bull on crack.” Rooster is the slick talker who smooths things out in his partner’s wake.

When a vigilante killer starts picking off miscreants who have managed to escape justice, suspicion falls on the explosive Turk. Every now and then we see snippets of a video in which Turk seems to be confessing to the murders.

Of course, it’s not as easy as that ... though it’s all too easy to figure out who the real serial killer is.

Anyway, “Righteous Kill” also features Donnie Wahlberg and John Leguizamo as a couple of cops who become convinced of Turk’s guilt. Carla Gugino is a CSI type who’s been dating Turk and has a thing for rough sex. Brian Dennehy is everybody’s boss.

“Righteous Kill” was helmed by Jon Avnet (the excruciatingly bad “88 Minutes”) with the sort of phony, frantic energy that suggests a director with little faith in his material.

Indeed, the screenplay by Russell Gewirtz is such a busy, plot-driven affair that it never allows us to know the characters beyond their affinity for profane, old-boy banter. Occasionally, the De Niro and Pacino characters — who are as much a couple as any married pair — rise above the melodrama and deliver a few memorable moments of rueful sarcasm.

But “Righteous Kill” feels underpopulated. These are great actors. Give them something great to act.