Robert De Niro is back in the crime genre playing dual roles in this mobster biopic from Academy Award winning director Barry Levinson, and Academy Award nominated writer of GoodFellas (Scorsese, 1990), Nicholas Pileggi. In what could have potentially been an interesting tale based on two kingpin crime lords; The Alto Knights falls ever so far from doing so.
The Alto Knights has De Niro star as both Vito Genovese and Frank Costello, two Italian American mobsters in mid-20th century America. Both roles have De Niro looking almost identical, with the only difference being a few facial esthetics. It is quite disappointing that the need to use De Niro for both roles could not have produced at least a bit more of a difference between each character, unless it was purposely done for some underlying message of the two crime lords.
Once the best of friends, the growing jealousy Vito develops towards Frank ends in betrayal. On the cusp of World War II, Frank and Vito were part of the money-making business selling alcohol and lotteries to anyone and everyone who so wanted. When Vito gets himself into legal trouble, he flees to Italy leaving everything he controlled to Frank. Having dealt with drugs in Italy, Frank wants nothing to do with this when Vito returns, and this is where their differences begin. Years pass and eventually the tensions rise between the two and colleagues and bystanders are brought in harm’s way. Vito makes a life-changing decision and sets the two down a deadly collision course which may reshape the Mafia (and America) forever.
Straight to the point, that’s how The Alto Knights begins: Frank Costello is betrayed by his (at this point) lifelong friend, Vito Genovese, as an attempted assassination is botched in the lobby of his penthouse when he arrives home for the evening. The fast-paced action sequence brings audiences in and drives the force of the plot forward. As Costello gets shot here too, we see cuts between moments, unknown to the audience, but blurring as he realizes what’s just happened. Audience’s interests are peaked being introduced to the inner world of the film, but things fall short and slow down quickly after.
De Niro, in character as Costello, narrates the film from the future and the film is therefore him reminiscing about the past. This works well up until his narration turns into scenes cut in between the film where an older Costello is staring into the camera or flipping through old photographs. The use of De Niro narrating the past worked well, it was the moments actually cut into the film that affected the effect and also the pacing. Even the flashing forward in time was not the strangest decision made in The Alto Knights. As soon as it happens, it distracts from the story: the use of a fade to black at what feels like random points in the film. This, along with cutting to close-ups of Frank or Vito from two-shots during their one-to-one conversations, throws you off guard and makes it difficult to focus.
Titled from the name of the post-war drinking club Frank and Vito hung out in, The Alto Knights is underwhelming and wearing. De Niro returns to his New York Italian accents twice over and the editing throws you off, but at least it was slightly informative – if you’re interested in the American Mafia. The Alto Knights is in cinemas in the US, Canada and UK (along with more worldwide countries) now.
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