THE ALTO KNIGHTS

Cast: Robert De Niro, Debra Messing, Kathrine Narducci, Michael Rispoli, Cosmo Jarvis, Wallace Langham

Director: Barry Levinson

Running Time: 2:03

The Alto Knights seems unassailable is a gangster outing starring Robert De Niro and made by other people who are no strangers to this particular genre, including screenwriter Nicholas Pileggi, an author responsible for some of the most influential books on the subject which inspired some of the great films about the mob. De Niro plays dual roles in this as both Frank Costello, a professional gambler who was the boss of bosses amongst New York City's mafia groups, and Vitto Genovese, another gangster who feuds with his old friend Costello over control of the criminal operations of the city. Despite all of this, the film ends up being two hours of characters, either saying exactly what's happening. or talking around it and looking as if they'd rather be anywhere else - with a narrative that randomly jumps through time, in order for past versions of the characters to explain what the present ones already have, and barely scratches the surface of why this battle between old pals is significant in any way. It's merely an outline of a mob flick, made with no apparent passion or, for that matter, interest in the subject.

It opens in 1957, with an even older Frank narrating with the kind of indecision that will quickly define the dialogue throughout the piece. After a night out at the Copacabana with his wife Bobbie (Debra Messing), Frank returns alone to the building where the two live, for some business. As he stares at the lift, a man enters, raises a pistol, and shoots Frank in the head. The editing of this sequence alone is a nightmare of spatial incoherence, and adding to the temporal disjointedness that comes to define a large chunk of the film, we get to watch it all over again at least once and with even more confusion inserted into the flashback. Frank survives and, knowing that his ambitious friend Vito is responsible for the assassination attempt, decides to retire, lest their dispute spread throughout the city. For the viewers’ benefit, it’s fairly easy to tell Frank and Vito apart, even though De Niro plays both of them. Frank's the one with the prosthetic nose, and Vito is the one who sounds as if he's inhaled a full balloon of helium before each take. To be fair, watching De Niro verbally spar with himself in a couple of scenes is certainly interesting, because the split-screen effect is seamless and the actor can play these kinds of roles in his sleep. 

He might however, wish he’d been napping when the offer for this film arrived. From that introduction, the story jumps back into the past, to tangentially and hastily explain that Frank took over as mafia boss after Vito fled to Italy to avoid a double-murder charge, and further into the past, to show them as young men being friendly, and to an older Frank looking right at the camera to tell us what we're watching or just saw a few minutes prior. A sequence like that might happen within a minute or two, by the way, and the rush of so much repeatedly empty storytelling is almost impressive. The rest of the story, for what it's worth, hits all the usual highlights and only the basics. Vito is insulted by Frank's no-show at a party for his return and sends assassin Vincent (Cosmo Jarvis) after him. Frank tells his wife that he's going to retire and wants to make things right with Vito. The other bosses argue about what should be done about Vito. People are killed, and throughout all of this, Frank tells several other people that he still wants to retire and make things right with his old pal. Everyone talks and talks some more, without much flair or about anything other than what we need to know and what, presumably, they already know. The Alto Knights is only about itself as the broad notion of what a gangster film is, while offering no personality, insight, or basic narrative competence to exist as more than the mere idea of a project.