THE ALTO KNIGHTS (2025)

The Alto Knights starts with a bang, literally. The film opens in 1957 with the botched assassination attempt of crime boss Frank Costello (Robert De Niro) by a hitman of rival racketeer Vito Genovese (Robert De Niro again, in horn-rimmed glasses). When the bullet ricochets, it shatters the mirrored walls of the lift Costello stands in, fragmenting De Niro’s signature scowl into a macabre, jagged portrait.

This fractious opening seems to represent director Barry Levinson’s central metaphor for his story’s duelling De Niros: one of double lives and lost loyalty leading to a breaking point of violence, but it also represents the film’s failings. With Levinson and De Niro at the helm and a screenplay by the iconic Nicholas Pileggi (Goodfellas), The Alto Knights could have been a solid gangster film, but instead it’s a messy pastiche that adds little to the genre. That cracked, bloody mirror is about as clear as the movie gets.

The story isn’t complicated, and it’s even mostly true. Costello and Genovese grew up together as Italian immigrant kids who went on to make a killing as bootleggers during Prohibition. Genovese was the boss, but he fled to Italy to avoid prosecution and got stuck there, leaving Costello in charge. By the time he returns years later, Costello has cemented his leadership in the New York mafia, and leveraged his public reputation as a model citizen into years of profitable crime, leaving Genovese out in the cold. From there, their rivalry escalates, and the rest of the film follows a predictable drum beat of gunshots, mugshots and loud-mouthed paisans hurling expletives at each other across the room.

But for all its narrative simplicity, the film is confusing. The story is told from Costello’s perspective, with Genovese as his main antagonist. He tells their story through black and white flashbacks, complete with cheesy re-enactments backed by player piano jazz, and through direct to camera, documentary style narration. These sequences are also intercut with loads of historical footage and even some old James Cagney film clips. All this is edited together with the frenetic pacing of an over eager film student. Instead of lovingly evoking a bygone era of both real and cinematic history in his own vision, Levinson dumps tons of useless or borrowed footage into a film that already feels thin, forever echoing other directors’ more famous films.

There’s some humour in the script to lighten the load. Debra Messing turns in a studied and detailed performance as Costello’s wife Bobbie, breaking out a period perfect dialect and fussing over their two mink-clad dogs. Cosmo Jarvis (Shōgun) plays Costello’s would be assassin Vincent Gigante, and has several legitimately funny scenes as the hapless gunman stuffed into a trench coat and tie. His scenes with De Niro as Genovese give a glimpse of the zippy banter audiences have come to expect from mafia films and bring a few much needed laughs to an otherwise leaden and messy script.

Pileggi is famous for funny, organic sounding dialogue that drops the audience into a character’s world. He coined a style of mobbed up New York slang that now defines the genre. And there is a healthy dose of that same spunky banter here, but much of it feels improvised, and not in a good way. Scenes drag on with a circular repetition that feel more like watching an acting exercise than a polished scene.

As for De Niro’s performance, more isn’t more. While still a capable actor, the script’s lack of focus and director’s lack of perspective give him little to do. Costello is the better part, and he’s better in it. While Costello is the more natural fit for De Niro, the not so subtle choices he makes to differentiate between his two performances don’t convince. Where Costello is careful and self-contained, Genovese is brash and explosive. Costello’s posture is raised and defensive, Genovese is coiled and sly. Costello wears expensive suits, Genovese wears leather jackets. It should be thrilling to see an actor who is arguably the greatest of his generation in such different roles, but he cannot generate chemistry with himself, nor can Levinson manage to steward the scenes to make them interesting.

Mercifully, the third act manages to be both entertaining and efficient, bringing a sharpness the previous hour and thirty minutes lacked. The final set piece takes place in upstate New York at the Apalachin Meeting, where mafia bosses from across the country gathered to mark Genovese’s ascension back to the top, and witness Costello’s formal retirement. Having just survived a murder attempt, Costello is determined to get out for good, but not without thwarting Genovese’s plans to turn New York’s criminal underworld into a drug empire.

Finally, Levinson flexes his muscles as a director to show Costello’s meticulous plan unfolding. The sequence feels fun and light, full of interesting character moments, brisk pacing and surprising turns. He even throws in a little Frank Sinatra in the background. De Niro seems to be having the most fun here as well, finally given a little bit of juicy subtext to elevate his performance. The closing action goes some ways toward enlivening an otherwise stale and sedate offering, it’s a tantalising reminder of what the film could have been. The ending is at least tidy, putting a bow on a what largely feels like a missed opportunity.

It’s impossible not to compare The Alto Knights to the mobster classics it draws from, mostly because Levinson expends inexplicable amounts of time drawing those comparisons himself. But The Alto Knights cannot compel an audience by continually reminding them of other, better films from years past. It so closely mimics even recent films like The Irishman (2019) that the whole project feels eerily off. The story, the cast, the costumes, even the lighting and layers of prosthetics and de-ageing CGI have all been done before, and done better. It recreates the feeling of other movies so faithfully, there’s no room for variation and therefore, little of interest.

Levinson is an Academy Award-winning director and De Niro one of the most respected and lauded actors ever to act on film, but none of this immense talent matters much if there is no investment in authenticity or originality. As such, The Alto Knights feels more like a dull reflection of its influences than an homage to them. Vincent Gigante may have missed his shot at killing Frank Costello by a hair, but Levinson and the Alto crew missed a hit by a mile.

USA | 2025 | 123 MINUTES | 2.39:1 | COLOUR | ENGLISH

Cast & Crew

director: Barry Levinson.
writer: Nicholas Pileggi.
starring: Robert De Niro, Debra Messing, Cosmo Jarvis, Kathrine Narducci, Michael Rispoli, Michael Adler & Ed Amatrudo.