‘The Alto Knights’ Review: Double the De Niros in This Half-Baked, Gimmicky Gangster Movie

Two of New York City’s most notorious gangsters meet in a candy shop to hash out their differences. Their relationship goes back decades; the men rose through the ranks of the criminal underworld together. Then one of the men, hot-headed Vito Genovese, had to flee the country to avoid a murder charge, leaving the other, diplomatic Frank Costello, as their organization’s acting boss. When Genovese returns, he wants to be made whole for all the financial opportunities he missed while he was gone. But no matter how Costello tries to appease Genovese, it’s never enough.

So they meet in the candy shop to settle the matter. They exchange pleasantries. They talk about the old days. Their bond is so strong, the two are practically brothers. Only in the new movie about Costello and Genevese, The Alto Knights, they seem more like twins — because both are played by Robert De Niro under two different wigs and accents.

Why? I have no idea. It’s one thing to cast one actor as a pair of siblings, or clones, or even a father and a son at similar ages. Here De Niro plays two different men who are not related. That distracting choice adds nothing to The Alto Knights, except perhaps a marketing hook, because Warner Bros. can advertise the film as the chance to see Robert De Niro go toe to toe with Robert De Niro.

READ MORE: A Gangs of New York TV Series Is in the Works

Although the choice to cast De Niro twice remains a baffling one, it must be said that on a technical level, their scenes together look convincing. When the men are apart (which is most of the film), De Niro is perfectly serviceable in both roles, even if the script (by mob movie legend Nicholas Pileggi of Goodfellas and Casino fame) remains oddly uninterested in Costello and Genovese’s respective psychologies. By the time the movie picks up their story in the late 1940s, they are entrenched in their respective roles within the Mafia hierarchy; Costello as the genteel dealmaker with political connections, and Genovese as the seething firebrand looking to avenge an endless parade of grievances. (In another time and place, Joe Pesci would have played Genovese to De Niro’s Costello — and in fact, with his high-pitched motor-mouthed delivery, De Niro almost seems to be doing a Pesci impression as Genovese.)

Although The Alto Knights starts in 1957 and then flashes back in time from there, the relationship between the two (oddly similar looking) protagonists is fairly obvious and uncomplicated right from the jump: Genovese envies Costello’s wealth and position, and hates the way he tries to comport himself as a legitimate businessman. Costello knows Genovese’ reckless behavior could destroy his empire, but his loyalty to his friend, and his belief in the Mafia’s strict code of conduct, keeps him from taking action against him. So Genovese keeps lashing out at Costello after that doomed candy shop encounter, culminating in a failed assassination attempt that serves as The Alto Knights’ opening scene.

Casting De Niro as both of these infamous criminals invites the audience to draw parallels between them. I suppose if you want to look at Costello and Genovese very closely, there are some connections you can draw. Each was married, for example, their scenes with their respective spouses serve to underscore their differing temperaments and neuroses. Costello is devoted to Bobbie (Debra Messing), and spends most of his nights at home with her in front of their television. Genovese spots his wife Anna (Kathrine Narducci) while she’s walking on the street. He wines and dines her, marries her, then becomes obsessed with her ex-husband. When the ex keeps showing up in the new couple’s favorite restaurant, Genovese kills him in a jealous rage.

But the bubbling tension between the two De Niros (De Niros? Des Niro?) never rises beyond the level of a very slow simmer. After the violent opening scene, The Alto Knights’ next hour and ten minutes is all backstory narrated by Costello as an old man — which is another curious choice in a film filled with them, since it means that more than half of the movie is little more than plodding exposition about a central conflict whose eventual winner is all but obvious right from the beginning. By the time the movie finally returns to the late 1950s, Costello and Genovese’s battle is all but over, and their feud culminates in a truly anticlimactic (and historically dubious) sequence.

When all is said and done, The Alto Knights imparts very little about these two men that couldn’t be gleaned by reading their respective Wikipedia pages, and it does it at a sluggish pace and with little visual flair. Some of the biggest and best names to ever work in gangster movies contributed to this film; De Niro and Pileggi, obviously, but also producer Irwin Winkler and director Barry Levinson. Despite their many contributions to this genre in the past, they’ve got nothing new to say here. And they provide zero evidence that casting De Niro in both lead roles is anything more than a gimmick.

RATING: 4/10

Get our free mobile app