LONDON: You can argue that, with Marlon Brando, they comprise the triangulation of Great American Acting in the age of the Method. Yet you beef that phrase up with looming capitals, because they’ve both overdone it in their time to the point where it’s a bit of a joke.

If we love them — and I think we do — still, now in their 60s, they have sometimes had to trade on our fondness and forgiveness. After all, you need to be connoisseurs of the boys and their helpless taste for pickled ham to accept that Scent of a Woman, The Devil's Advocate, Carlito's Way, Any Given Sunday, Frankenstein, The Fan, Ronin or Cop Land are worthy pieces of acting instead of shameless paydays. I'm talking about Al Pacino and Robert de Niro, of course, and that sublime, cockamamie moment in Heat where they have a cup of coffee together.

There they are in that film, like brothers (Al is three years older than Bobby), as Vincent and Neil - a leading LA cop and a criminal who takes down big jobs. Let me be clear, I enjoy Michael Mann's film very much, and I watch it a lot: it is a savage portrait of Los Angeles; it has a wicked shoot-em-up climax; it is vicious, funny and taut, and it has one of the deepest casts in modern film (just think of Natalie Portman, Tom Sizemore, Jon Voight, Tom Noonan, Ashley Judd, William Fichtner, Kevin Gage - all in fairly small parts). It is also movie-absurd.

The picture is a duel between cop and crook, and at one point Vincent the cop (Pacino) takes first a helicopter and then a car to pull over Neil (De Niro) as he drives on the freeway at night. Is an arrest or a search imminent? No, Vincent just wants to have a cup of coffee with someone. So they pull over and there follows one of the grand opera scenes of film noir in which the two guys admit that what they do is very alike, and cool, and dedicated, but watch out - because if either one has to, he'll abandon the smokescreen of edgy respect gathering in the steam of the coffee, and take the other one out.

Some of the film’s defenders have said this is a profound moment of existential recognition in modern society, encapsulating the true meaning of the modern noir: there is no difference between cops and crooks. Balderdash. You have to lead a very sheltered life indeed (ie one spent largely in the darkness of cinemas) to believe that even shabby, half-corrupt cops are akin to crooks who will kill passers-by without noticing. If your car has ever been gutted, or your home invaded by violence, you know how specious the film’s proposal is. There is also the point that, while Vincent may make $100,000 a year, Neil is on a couple of million a job.

The scene is there in the film, in the end, for the same reason the queens have a scene together in Schiller's play Maria Stuart: the money boys leaned on Schiller as he wrote it to tell him to put one in, even if Mary and Elizabeth never met in history. And that’s what happens in Heat - a gaudy, overripe acting class, and one in which (in this writer's opinion) De Niro wins hands down because he takes a cue from every bit of bluster and heavy breathing in Pacino.

He does less and waits like a snake. De Niro is, and has always been, the fiercer and more mysterious actor, the one less anxious to be liked. Heat, made in 1995, was their first film together, no matter that they had been spoken of as nearly a hyphenated force for 20 years. Of course, they were part of the same family, not just the children of Lee Strasberg, but Corleones.

That is the Brando triangle: for as he came to make The Godfather Part II, Robert de Niro learned not just from the Sicilian mannerisms of Brando (in the same role, but older) but from the frozen, settling calm of Al Pacino, playing his son, Michael, the Ivy League boy who will take over the family business. De Niro won an Oscar as best supporting actor as Vito. Yet I think it’s true to say that Pacino’s Michael (built slowly over two movies) is one of the central double-shot performances in American film - akin to Gary Cooper in Mr Deeds Goes to Town and Meet John Doe or De Niro in Taxi Driver and Raging Bull.

As their careers developed, De Niro jumped ahead: he seemed prepared to work more often, and appeared ready for anything: not just a string of films with Martin Scorsese - Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, New York, Raging Bull and The King of Comedy — but 1900 (with Bernardo Bertolucci), The Last Tycoon (a failure but a prestigious picture) and his dominating role in The Deer Hunter. By 1980, De Niro was a movie star, while Pacino had followed a less active, more arty or wayward path — Scarecrow, Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon, Bobby Deerfield, And Justice for All, Cruising, Author! Author!

Several of those Pacino films have passed into obscurity, while the De Niro pictures remain modern standards - and he got a lead-part Oscar for Raging Bull. But then De Niro found outside interests. He became a notable restaurateur in Manhattan, and in time he took on a marquee position at the Tribeca Film Festival.

The quality of his films declined (it is often said), and there was a period when he seemed more interested in maintaining his income - though he was no longer exactly a star: Falling in Love, The Mission, Angel Heart, Jacknife, We're No Angels, Stanley & Iris, Guilty by Suspicion, Backdraft, as well as Scorsese films like Goodfellas, Cape Fear and Casino that sometimes seemed more like retreads.

On the other hand, the title part in Scarface began the process of endearment for Al Pacino. Tony Montana was a monster, but an adorable one, because the criminal excesses were sweetened with bravura acting. To this day, kids “do” Tony, and my guess is that it encouraged Pacino himself to play broader in the future. But following this success, he “rested” a lot, continued to work in theatre and in 1990 co-directed an hour-long gangster film set in London — The Local Stigmatic — which remained an only occasionally viewed curiosity until it was finally released in America last year as part of a boxset. It was only in 1992, with Scent of a Woman, that Pacino won his Oscar, a victory that speaks to the generosity of the Academy. By the 1990s, therefore, it was possible to see both actors as institutions tinged with cynicism.

There was also a new generation of younger actors to behold: Sean Penn, Brad Pitt, Leonardo Di Caprio, Johnny Depp. I think it's fair to say that De Niro can go on to automatic pilot a lot these days, while Pacino is inclined to breathe on the gas pipe of self-admiration. There are ways in which neither has lived up to the intense promise of the early 70s, but they cannot be blamed for the decline in movie quality during the same period.

And yet, they are oddballs, still. You might not like The Local Stigmatic (if you are willing to track it down), but you have to admire the way Pacino paid for it himself and has continued to re-edit it over the years. And you cannot miss the note of thematic obsession in his other directorial efforts: his analysis of Shakespeare in Looking for Richard and his unraveling of Oscar Wilde's Salome in the upcoming Salomaybe?.

De Niro has directed twice - A Bronx Tale and the seriously underrated The Good Shepherd (an intricate study of espionage and the CIA full of foreboding and isolated personalities).

Now, at last, they are back together in a film called Righteous Kill. This time, make no mistake, they are together - even on Heat there were suggestions that they filmed their contributions separately, for there is never a two-shot of them in that picture. Here they are veteran cops on a case that brings back memories of a previous killing. The film comes without great acclaim, and it feels like a cashing-in by both of them, an admission that the public would like to see them over the coffee again (incidentally, they will combine again as voices in a forthcoming video game version of Heat). If we are lucky, Righteous Kill (directed by Jon Avnet) will be better than expected.

Like old-time stars, these two men have lasted long enough to give us their rough and their smooth - and we should note that there are pretty bad films starring such paragons as Jimmy Stewart and Cary Grant. Maybe De Niro is too much associated with aloofness now, while Pacino is too ingratiating.

But then think of some performances I haven't mentioned yet — Donnie Brasco, The Insider, Insomnia and Angels in America for Pacino; City by the Sea, Wag the Dog and Jackie Brown for De Niro. If you look ahead, can you really resist De Niro in Michael Mann's Frankie Machine, or Pacino playing Salvador Dali in Dali & I. Come to that, are you really going to forgo the pleasure of seeing these boys sip each other's coffee together in Righteous Kill - especially if one of them turns out to be the killer?—Dawn-Guardian News Service