The Alto Knights (now streaming on HBO Max) gives us double De Niro for our buck and… eesh. I know the guy’s one of the all-time greats, especially for a guy born to anchor gangster epics, but how distracting is it for the veteran of Goodfellas, The Godfather Part II, and The Irishman to play rival mobsters in the same BOATS (Based On A True Story) movie? The film, which boasts additional heavy-hitters in veteran director Barry Levinson and screenwriter Nicholas Pileggi (Casino, Goodfellas), posits De Niro as both Frank Costello and Vito Genovese, two sides of a notorious 1950s rivalry between prominent New York City mobsters. I get it, to a point; thematically, the film shows us how the same tree produces two wildly different branches, so to speak, considering Frank and Vito were longtime comrades who grew up together but became bitter enemies late in life. But watching one De Niro heavy with makeup and prosthetics argue with a second De Niro heavy with makeup and prosthetics is wildly distracting, and the movie around him (them?) is remarkably turgid. No wonder it was such a big box office sloppo-floppo.
The Gist: “My best friend – he betrayed me.” So goes a De Niro-as-Frank-Costello voiceover, as a bullet to the head somehow doesn’t kill him. In fact, the wounds are minor. A bandage, some aspirin, and he goes home, walking right past the shattered glass of the crime scene near the elevator to his swanky Central Park West penthouse apartment. You might think he’d be triggered and traumatized to see the scene of his should’ve-been death, but nope. He’s a tough guy, don’t give him any of that mamby-pamby baloney. The head of the NYC mob isn’t bothered by shit like that. No, he’s more concerned with the gang war brewing in the wake of his attempted assassination. The hit was ordered by Vito Genovese, Frank’s BFF dating back decades. Frank tells us this via voiceover and moments where he narrates directly at the camera, and god help me if it didn’t remind me of Richard Attenborough dropping in to big-picture a scenario before honing in on the mating habits of the blue-tongued skink. Or maybe that should be warring chimp clans? That might be a better analogy.
Anyway, Frank tells us how he and Vito used to be thick as thieves, and the thieves part is quite literal. They were kids hanging in front of the candy shop who eventually became big wheels at the cracker factory that is the NYC organized-crime scene. The movie/Frank tells and tells and tells and tells (and tells) us – notably in a rather confusing and disorganized jumble of dull encyclopedia info – all about how they got to the point where they hated the crap out of each other. Vito was running “the business” while Frank worked beneath him, earning a fortune bootlegging booze and organizing gambling endeavors during the Prohibition Era. Vito fled to Italy to avoid a murder rap, leaving Frank in charge; then World War II broke out, which might’ve existed solely to annoy Vito. The conflict forced him to stay in Italy, and he didn’t return stateside until 15 years later. By then, Frank had united all the families and whatnot, and business was good – and for Vito, that just won’t do at all.
See, Vito wants his old job back. Can you blame him? I guess not. Frank, of course, resists. First of all, he’s not the type to cede power. You don’t become king of NYC crime by ceding power to whoever asks. On top of that, he fashioned his public image as a fairly harmless “professional gambler,” thus cooling some of the public scrutiny on the mob. See, Vito is a crazy-paranoid hothead, where Frank’s head is more, y’know, level. Vito has a tendency to stir a lotta shit, peddling drugs (a big no-no in the gangster code at the time) and killing guys without much thought. Example: When Vito gets married to a club owner (Kathrine Narducci), he just takes her earnings whenever he wants, and she ends up dropping Frank’s name when they’re all on the record in divorce court. See? Capital-T Trouble. So Vito sends a guy to kill Frank and the guy effs it up and Frank lives. Frank is sick of this shit so he decides to retire, urged on by his wife (Debra Messing, in a thankless bit of miscasting). He’ll hand the keys to Vito and live a boring life with his wife and their tiny annoying dogs, like a total chump. What kind of gangster does that? I mean, really. Vito, however, worships at the altar of chaos, probably unwittingly. Frank’s offer is perfectly reasonable. But of course, Vito is not a reasonable man.
What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Alto Knights’ structural similarities to Goodfellas only function to remind us how the former doesn’t deserve to shine the latter’s shoes.
Performance Worth Watching: This film is constructed in a manner that makes it impossible not to watch Robert De Niro act. When you’re not watching De Niro, you’re watching De Niro, and if that doesn’t make sense to you, then you clearly haven’t watched The Alto Knights.
Memorable Dialogue: Frank contrasts past and present situations: “That was love. This is business.”
Sex and Skin: None.
Our Take: The Alto Knights might be functional if it wasn’t De Niro v De Niro. In this corner, Putty Chin De Niro (Vito). In the other corner, Enhanced Nose De Niro (Frank). Two men enter wearing distracting hair pieces incorporating bald caps, one man wearing a distracting hair piece incorporating a bald cap leaves! is not a solid basis for a BOATS gangster epic. It’s a true story rendered irritatingly phony. We’re supposed to gasp when Levinson puts De Niro and De Niro in the same shot exclamation point – check out the LEGEND, times TWO – but all we end up doing is playing a game of Spot the Differences: Vito wears glasses. Frank has lots of age spots. Vito speaks in a pinched voice. Frank sounds like Regular De Niro. Where does the real hair start and end? Is either one of those noses the legit De Niro Nose? Quick, Google image search. No, type in “De Niro 2025.” His nose won’t be the same now as it was in the ’70s or ’90s. Got an accurate De Niro nose reference yet? OK, both noses must be altered. But Vito’s is more altered than Frank’s. I think?
Such is the process of watching this movie. Is there a story beyond Double De Niros? Barely. It’s the De Niro Two-Ring Circus, and it ain’t Barnum and Baileys. Heck, it’s barely even the jank-ass Shrine Circus and its pervasive whiff of elephant dung. Pileggi’s disappointingly cluttered and dull screenplay is a mighty struggle to sit through, wavering between ratatat info dumps akin to a History Channel documentary on fast-forward and repetitive scenes that take multiple set pieces and scads of dialogue to communicate a single plot point. All dramatic stakes and rising tension are buried under gimmickry and the film’s insistence on telling us things more than showing us things. And one is left to ponder whether the snoozy and annoying Alto Knights is better gussied up with the De Niro distraction, or if it would be more palatable simply as a dreary slog. What a choice.
Our Call: Good news is, you don’t have to make that choice! You’re better off leaving my straw man to rot on the pole in the field. SKIP IT.
John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.