The Alto Knights (2025)    Warner Bros./Drama    RT: 123 minutes    Rated R (violence and pervasive language)    Director: Barry Levinson    Screenplay: Nicholas Pileggi    Music: David Fleming    Cinematography: Dante Spinotti    Release date: March 21, 2025 (US)    Cast: Robert De Niro, Debra Messing, Cosmo Jarvis, Kathrine Narducci, Michael Rispoli, Ed Amatrudo, James Ciccone, Wallace Langham, Matt Servitto, Louis Mustillo.

Rating: *

 I knew something was wrong when I noticed that Warner wasn’t doing much to promote their gangster drama The Alto Knights. By all appearances, it looked like they had a winner on their hands. It’s directed by Barry Levinson (Bugsy), written by Nicholas Pileggi (Goodfellas) and stars Robert De Niro (Goodfellas). Despite this strong pedigree, I saw very little in the way of marketing. The fact that the studio opted to open it in March instead of giving it a more prestigious fall release confirms it further. The Alto Knights is a complete misfire.

 You get twice the De Niro in The Alto Knights. The actor does double duty playing two roles, feuding mob bosses Vito Genovese and Frank Costello. That’s the film’s biggest misstep. De Niro is one of the finest actors of our generation. He spreads himself too thin here taking on two distinctly different personas. He does a fine job as Costello, the more rational of the two, the one who always keeps a cool head even when the world immediately around him spins out of control. He maintains a firm grasp on a role he’s played several times in his career. He’s less assured as the volatile Genovese, the rogue mobster prone to acts of great violence in defiance of his bosses. This is a role more suited to Joe Pesci. He has the manic spiritedness De Niro lacks. This bit of miscasting weakens The Alto Knights considerably.

 Costello, acting as narrator, takes us through the events that ultimately led to the infamous Apalachin Meeting of 1957 that led to the arrests and indictments of over 60 major organized crime figures. It, and the movie, starts with the attempted assassination of Costello in a hotel elevator by Vincent Gigante (Jarvis, Shogun) acting on Genovese’s orders. He survives and decides it’s time to retire from a business from which there is no easy exit. The threat of another attempt on his life looms over Costello like a dark storm cloud.

 Most of The Alto Knights is told in flashbacks. It’s explained to us that Costello and Genovese were boyhood friends, Italian immigrants from the same New York neighborhood. They both got into the crime business as bootleggers during Prohibition. From there, Costello became a self-described “professional gambler” and political kingmaker while Genovese engaged in activities more commonly associated with gangsters.

 When Genovese flees to Italy to avoid murder charges, he leaves Costello in charge. Things are peaceful until Genovese returns to the US after the war. He wants his old job back. Bodies start dropping all over the place and lawmakers start asking questions, Tennessee Senator Estes Kefauver (Langham, CSI) most notably. Mob historians will remember that Costello’s face wasn’t shown during his televised testimony in front of the Committee. Levinson botches the scene by repeatedly returning to Genovese watching with his cronies at the Alto Knights Social Club, yelling at him to take the Fifth like everybody else called to testify under subpoena. The Alto Knights borders on farce whenever Genovese is on screen. It diminishes whatever heft the film might have had if done right.

 Levinson is a classic fall from grace story. The once-great filmmaker whose filmography includes first-rate titles like Diner (1982), Tin Men (1987), Good Morning, Vietnam (1987), Rain Man (1988) and Bugsy (1991) never completely recovered from the flop that was Toys (1992). He’s hasn’t made a decent picture in 25 years, since 1999’s underappreciated Liberty Heights. The Alto Knights does nothing to reverse his fortune. It’s a confused mess that merely lists bullet points rather than explores the major events of this tumultuous time in the history of organized crime. It’s more like a lecture by a disinterested speaker. It certainly doesn’t help that Pileggi’s script is a jumbled mess. There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to it.

 I guess you could say De Niro gives half a decent performance in The Alto Knights and even that’s only half-decent. Like I said, he’s played the role of level-headed gangster more than once, mostly for Martin Scorsese. As Frank Costello, he delivers a mannered performance. He wears the part like a suit that’s worn but still fits. I wouldn’t go so far as to say he phones it in, but he’s definitely flying on autopilot. His other performance is less than stellar. It’s little more than a makeup job and a bad impression of Pesci. Quite frankly, I can’t believe he went for such gimmicky casting. Maybe he saw it as challenging? I see it as a cheap gimmick that lessens the film’s credibility.

 Levinson doesn’t do his actresses any favors with what little development he affords their thinly written characters. Messing (Will & Grace) is miscast as Costello’s wife renamed “Bobbie” for the movie. She does little more than act the part of the Jewish wife worried for her husband’s safety. She has none of the spark that Lorraine Bracco brought to her mob wife character in Goodfellas. Narducci (The Irishman) is livelier as Genovese’s wife Anna, a lesbian nightclub owner who tries to take him to the cleaners in divorce court. By livelier, I mean she overacts to the point of parody. She makes Sharon Stone in Casino look even better.

 The Alto Knights tries for the gravitas of The Godfather, the raw energy of Goodfellas and the melancholy of The Irishman only to fail at every one. Instead, it’s slow, plodding and dull. The score by David Fleming is more distracting than anything else. It plays under scenes that don’t need it. Levinson tries without success to copy Scorsese with needle drops of era-appropriate pop songs like “You Belong to Me” and “Tutti Frutti”. It does nothing to propel the action. The film remains at a standstill throughout. In the end, The Alto Knights does nothing but fire blanks.