MOVIE REVIEW: THE ALTO KNIGHTS

 

In the 1950s, notorious New York crime bosses Frank Costello and Vito Genovese vie for control of the city streets. Once the best of friends, petty jealousies and a series of betrayals place them on a deadly collision course that reshapes organized crime forever.

Director: Barry Levinson

Cast: Robert De Niro, Debra Messing, Cosmo Jarvis, Kathrine Narducci, Michael Rispoli

Release Date: March 21, 2025

Genre: Biography, Crime, Drama, History

Rated R for violence and pervasive language

Runtime: 2h 3m

Review:

The Alto Knights is a solid, if unremarkable mafia tale from Barry Levinson with the main draw being Robert De Niro playing dual roles.  Levinson's film is efficient enough to move through Costello's life at a steady pace even though it suffers from an unshakeable sense of familiarity due to the sheer glut of mafia stories that have hit the screen.  It lessens the effect of this true-life story since there are very few surprises in store as we  follow Costello's retelling of his friendship and feud with Vito Genovese.  Robert De Niro is still more than capable enough to carry dual roles and does it fairly effortlessly here.  He seems to be enjoying himself playing back in the mafia sandbox as he cycles through variations of characters, he's played in the past along with a few hints of Raging Bull thrown in for good measure.  It’s hard to deny how fun it is to see De Niro perform against himself when the characters come face to face, but you can't shake the feeling that the film would have been better off casting someone else as Vito, Joe Pesci would have been perfect for multiple reasons.  It doesn't help that the script from Nicholas Pileggi, who wrote Goodfellas and Casino, is surprisingly thin in terms of fleshing out the characters across the board.  Costello and Genovese are always at arm’s length as we never really get much insight into their minds outside of one's perchance for violence in contrast to the other's more measured, less brutal, approach.  The supporting characters suffer even more as we get painfully little to flesh them out leaving solid performers like Debra Messing and Cosmo Jarvis with very little to work with.  Adding a bit more depth to the characters across the board would have made The Alto Knights far more engaging than it ends up being once everything is said and done.

C+

MOVIE REVIEW: WARFARE

 

A surveillance mission goes wrong for a platoon of American Navy SEALs in insurgent territory in Iraq.

Director: Ray Mendoza; Alex Garland

Cast: D'Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, Will Poulter, Cosmo Jarvis, Joseph Quinn, Kit Connor, Finn Bennett, Taylor John Smith, Michael Gandolfini, Adain Bradley, Noah Centineo, Evan Holtzman, Henry Zaga, Charles Melton

Release Date: April 11, 2025

Genre: Action, Drama, War

Rated R for intense war violence and bloody/grisly images, and language throughout.

Runtime: 1h 35m

Review:

Ray Mendoza and Alex Garland's Warfare is an intense, nerve-racking retelling of an engagement gone wrong which puts the audience on ground with the platoon.  The film plays out in real time with the script based on testimonial from those involved back on November 19, 2006, in Ramadi, Iraq.  As a result, the plot is about as barebones as they come with the mission and subsequent rescue being the main propulsive force for the narrative.  We are given only the slightest tidbits of information on the respective members of the platoon as we watch them fight for their lives when things go off the rails.  This isn't the type of film that gives you the traditional tropes found in most war films so those looking for deep character exploration might be left wanting to know more about each person.  Mendoza and Garland are much more focused on bringing the chaos and its effect on these mostly 20 something soldiers as they struggle to survive and cope with deeply disturbing situations.  The ensemble cast is made up of a bevy of familiar faces with each delivering excellent work by delivering realistically raw reactions to the traumatic events on display.  There are still displays of heroism, but the film avoids overt jingoism with both sides presented as apolitically as possible.  The action sequences are technically impressive across the board, some of which give you the disorienting sense of shell shock the characters feel. There's an intentionality to everything Mendoza and Garland throw onscreen in Warfare with their aim being to give the audience a small sense of what these people went through for that hour and half and hopefully release some of the pent-up trauma along the way.   

A-