The Alto Knights
U.S.A. 2025

Opening 20 Mar 2025

Directed by: Barry Levinson
Writing credits: Nicholas Pileggi
Principal actors: Robert De Niro, Debra Messing, Kathrine Narducci, Cosmo Jarvis, Michael Rispoli

Over many decades there have been countless Mafia movies in the cinemas, and it seems that this one is a last farewell present to audiences put together by three old masters of this genre. Director Barry Levinson, who will be eighty-three in April, made classics like Good Morning, Vietnam, Rain Man, Wag the Dog, and Bugsy; author and screenwriter Nicholas Pileggi, who is ninety-two, is most famous for his book Wiseguy and his screenplay for Goodfellas. As for Robert De Niro, now eighty-one, the list of acclaimed movies he starred in, many of which were Mafia stories, is simply endless. He won countless awards and is no doubt one of the best actors of his generation.

The one thing Robert De Niro had never done before in his long career, though, is acting in a double role. Whilst we can expect an old-fashioned (in the best sense of the word) movie, it is not entirely safe to assume that it is the best choice to have one and the same actor play both main protagonists, in this case boyhood friends turned rivals, mobsters Frank Costello and Vito Genovese. In my final opinion I would say, yes, he pulls it off, but then I am a great De Niro fan. I can understand that some of the audience might be distracted by him playing the double role.

The story, based on true events, begins in 1957, but tells us in flashbacks about the complicated relationship between the two Mafia bosses, who grew up together in New York's Hell's Kitchen, frequenting the so-called Alto Knights Social Club. Vito Genovese is apparently the top mobster, while Frank Costello, much influenced by his beautiful Jewish wife Bobbie (Debra Messing), tries very hard to put up a good respectable citizen's front, hosting charity events and by 1957 trying to leave the Mafia business behind. Some years before, Genovese, facing jail time, had to flee the country to spend time in Italy, so that things could cool down for him. During his absence he had put best friend Costello in charge of business. On his return to New York, he feels that Costello betrayed him and orders a hit on Costello. That is the opening scene of the movie. Miraculously, the bullet only slightly injures Costello, and he survives, even more determined to get out of business with the Mafia. He thinks up a plan to get the various Mafia bosses from across the country to get together near the Canadian border, to welcome back Genovese as the top boss, and then things do not go quite the way all the other mobsters expect. Nice point also, because up to that day the famous FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover had claimed that there was “no organized crime.” That meeting should prove the opposite to the public.

This whole story is told to us by Frank Costello, many years later. Seeing De Niro's Costello talking to us as an old man, we can lean back, knowing that the “good” mobster did get to enjoy retirement in the end. On the way, we see beautiful film sets, costumes, and big cars from the 1950s, and black-and-white footage from night club scenes with Louis Prima and Glenn Miller. Like what you would expect from lifetime masters of the cinema. (Ulrike Lemke)