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+
