As more than one commentator has already noted, Warner Bros. Pictures’ new crime biopic The Alto Knights is one of a slew of 2025 movie releases where the star plays dual roles.
Theo James portrays identical twins in The Monkey. Michael B. Jordan is set to do the same in Sinners. Robert Pattinson fronts up as a bunch of clones in Mickey 17. And The Alto Knights pits Robert De Niro against himself as rival mobsters Frank Costello and Vito Genovese. It’s tempting to attribute some greater, zeitgeist-y motivation to this trend. Maybe it’s a reflection of our fractured collective psyche in these polarizing times. Or maybe the truth is more mundane. Are overlaps such as this a simple inevitability when pandemics and strikes cause a Hollywood backlog?
It’s a tantalizing headscratcher, but if you’re serious about finding the answer, don’t bother looking to The Alto Knights. This Barry Levinson outing is criminally light on insights – whether we’re talking duality, crime, or something else entirely – and, despite De Niro’s best efforts, comes off as an extended stunt rather than an actual movie.
As alluded to above, The Alto Knights is based on the real life power struggle between Mafia heavyweights Frank Costello and Vito Genovese in the 1950s. Frank is an even-tempered, calculating customer who cultivates an air of legitimacy, while Vito is a self-professed racketeer with a hair-trigger temper. They’re life-long best buddies, until Frank winds up in control of the New York City operation Vito started. Predictably, Vito wants the top job back, and he’s willing to do anything – even kill a friend – to get it.
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So, it’s your standard gangster yarn, albeit with non-standard visual appeal. Indeed, Levinson, cinematographer Dante Spinotti, and the crew present as lush a vision of period New York as you could hope for. Unfortunately, The Alto Knights never really settles into a cohesive visual style. Old school, street-level dolly shots, and throwback set-ups (think: guys getting whacked in silhouette) rub awkwardly up against ultra-modern drone shots and inexplicable to-camera, fourth-wall-breaking confessionals. Admittedly, such stylistic contrasts can produce dazzling results, provided the incongruity of it all is carefully calibrated. But here? It’s just jarring.
The same goes for The Alto Knights‘ scattered use of slideshows and montages. It’s like we’re intermittently slipping into a different movie; more specifically, a Martin Scorsese movie. And in fairness to Levinson, such comparisons aren’t entirely fair. DeNiro and screenwriter Nicholas Pileggi were key players in two of Scorsese’s greatest crime joints, Goodfellas and Casino, so no matter what he did on The Alto Knights, he’d almost certainly come up short against those flicks. Still, it’s impossible to watch The Alto Knights and not come away wondering whether Scorsese might’ve wrangled something more coherent and satisfying out of it. If nothing else, Marty – for all that he embraced de-aging shenanigans on The Irishman – probably would’ve balked at a gimmick like casting De Niro as both Costello and Genovese.
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And if he did do it, it would’ve actually served a purpose. Levinson and Pileggi seemingly gesture at what they’re shooting for with De Niro’s Frank/Vito turn early on The Alto Knights; Costello reflects on the exact moment he clocked that he and Genovese are the same but different. However, like The Alto Knight‘s fitful musings on changing times, the immigrant experience, and who the real criminals are, it doesn’t really stick. Perhaps it could have, with a bit more time. True, that’s the opposite of what most films need these days. But honestly? The Alto Knights simply doesn’t work crammed into a two-hour runtime. On the contrary, it’s choppy as hell, bouncing between vignettes largely stitched together by title cards and exposition-heavy narration.
That’s not to say The Alto Knights is a slog to sit through. It’s actually pretty entertaining, particularly when Pileggi’s signature comedic flourishes bubble to the surface (a heated conversation about the Mormon faith’s founding is delightful stuff). It just never really coalesces; there are no clearly articulated (much less mounting) stakes. Sure, we’re told there could be gang violence; we even see a bit of it. But it’s hard to care when we don’t understand The Alto Knights‘ world or the people who populate it. Even Frank and Vito are ultimately ciphers, and their shattered relationship – ostensibly the heart of this whole enterprise – doesn’t mean squat. Despite everyone banging on about what pals Costello and Genovese used to be, we only ever know them as enemies. There’s no sense of what was lost, which renders whatever pathos Levinson and co. might’ve mustered moot.
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Heck, even the most genuinely tense sequence in The Alto Knights – a congressional committee hearing – only partially delivers on what should be a massive payoff, thanks to a lack of both context and character. It’s not DeNiro’s fault; he’s great as Frank and Vito, and (inescapable vocal similarities notwithstanding) does more to sell the illusion that these are two entirely separate individuals than his distracting makeup ever could. The talented supporting cast – including Debra Messing, Kathrine Narducci, and Cosmo Jarvis – aren’t any less committed, either. Like De Niro, they’re just given precious little to work with. And as crimes go, that’s pretty unforgivable.
The Alto Knights is in cinemas now.
Published: Mar 21, 2025 9:40 PM UTC