If the digital de-ageing of the holy trinity of Robert De Niro, Al Pacino and Joe Pesci in Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman was a bit distracting at times, get a load of double De Niro in Barry Levinson’s long-gestating The Alto Knights. Demonstrating that when it comes to the greats you can never have too much of a good thing, De Niro plays both leading roles: that of don Frank Costello on the verge of a quiet retirement, and his hot-headed childhood friend and drug baron Vito Genovese, with whom he’s forced to go toe-to-toe.
Based on a true story of mob warfare and penned by GoodFellas screenwriter Nicholas Pileggi, the film has been in the works since the 1970s and was finally greenlit in 2022. Watching the early sequences certainly gives one a sense of déjà vu: the film opens in media res in 1957 with an act of violence, narration from Frank kicks in, and rapid montages of archive footage draws us into this bygone world of New York Mafia power struggles, The Alto Knights being a social club they frequented. It all feels like handsomely crafted Scorsese-lite, but enjoyably so, like sinking into a shabby but much-loved armchair.
It’s always a pleasure to see De Niro toast his rivals’ downfall.
De Niro puts in a typically solid, commanding performance as big boss Frank but is clearly having more fun chewing the scenery beneath layers of prosthetics as the volatile Vito, who was born, fittingly, beneath Mount Vesuvius. These former friends and complete opposites have two major scenes together in which they seamlessly interact. Director Barry Levinson, of Rain Man and Bugsy, clearly takes pleasure in winding De Niro up and watching him go, even if at times it feels like De Niro plays Vito more like a Joe Pesci impression than a real person. Support comes from Cosmo Jarvis as a bumbling hitman and Debra Messing as Frank’s wife, but the standout is The Sopranos’ Kathrine Narducci as a fiery club owner who gives Vito as good as he gets.
The Alto Knights seems to be aiming for an elegiac tone similar to that of The Irishman, nostalgically mourning both a lost time and a neglected film genre. But it finds its groove in its sillier moments, most memorably a farcical sequence of ageing mobsters trying to flee an al fresco meet-up in upstate New York where they’ve been cornered by the cops. It’s hardly a return to the golden age of gangsters, but it’s always a pleasure to see De Niro toast his rivals’ downfall.
