Martin Scorsese’s rueful, poignant 2019 drama “The Irishman,” starring longtime collaborator Robert De Niro, was a reflection on — or perhaps even a eulogy for — the kind of gangster film that the pair made famous, like Scorsese saying farewell to the genre, ruminating on what it means to tell stories about men of violence.
But if you thought De Niro was out, he’s back in for one last job (for now), reuniting with another frequent collaborator, director Barry Levinson, for the mob movie “The Alto Knights,” scripted by “Goodfellas” and “Casino” screenwriter Nicholas Pileggi.
There’s a catch, a gimmick even, as De Niro stars opposite himself, playing both Frank Costello and Vito Genovese, two notorious real-life Italian American mafiosi who have inspired many movies and documentaries. It was a seismic moment when De Niro and Al Pacino shared the screen for the first time over coffee in Michael Mann’s epic “Heat” and similar-looking scenes are presented here as De Niro faces off against himself, though they don’t carry the same electricity.
As you’re reminded of all these other films, it becomes clear that “The Alto Knights” is more interesting in the context of Robert De Niro’s filmography than it is necessarily as a stand-alone picture. Like “The Irishman,” there’s a reflective quality to it, as a meditation on mob movies. It’s a reminder that De Niro’s presence — as an actor and signifier of the gangster movie — looms so large that only he could play the iconic roles of Costello and Genovese. There simply isn’t anyone else who could go toe-to-toe with him, other than himself.
In De Niro’s take on Genovese, sparkier and more impulsive than Costello, it almost seems like he’s doing an imitation of Joe Pesci, his co-star in “Goodfellas,” “Casino” and “The Irishman.” It takes a while to sync up with De Niro’s dual performances (he’s heavily made up in prosthetics), though to his credit, the artifice fades away over the course of the running time.
To try and synopsize the various trials and tribulations of the Genovese crime family during the first half of the 20th century would be a fool’s errand, and both Levinson and Pileggi recognize that, focusing on a few key events in the story of the longtime relationship between Costello and Genovese — namely, the latter’s botched hit on the former in 1957 — while glossing over most of their backstory in rapid-fire montage.
The plot is told nonlinearly and with a larger narrative framing device in which De Niro as an elderly Costello delivers a documentary-style talking head interview to an unseen interviewer, which serves as the voiceover for the film. Levinson animates many of Costello’s monologues about his life and work with a blend of archival and faux-archival photographs and footage, creating snapshots of history as a nod to the authenticity of this true-life tale.
These busy stylistic and storytelling tics, as well as the dueling De Niros, are a bit distracting, but by the time “The Alto Knights” arrives at its blockbuster scenes, it’s easy to be transported by Levinson’s deft filmmaking and De Niro’s performances. While the assassination attempt is the main event around which the film revolves, it’s a Senate hearing on organized crime and then, later, an upstate New York gathering of the bosses that prove the most fascinating sequences of “The Alto Knights.”
The film sings when it’s in action, whether it’s Costello breaking with the family’s oath of silence and choosing not to plead the Fifth during his Senate testimony, or during an amusing scene of Costello delaying his arrival at the countryside meeting to avoid being gathered up in a police sweep that he set into motion. It stalls out when it gets bogged down in backroom conversations that dwell in the details of betrayal and double-crosses.
But as much as “The Alto Knights” is a meta-commentary on mob movies, it’s also just a classic-feeling example of the genre that fans can enjoy. It’s a treat to watch all these older character actors gathered to slip into their wise-guy accents and Cosmo Jarvis (of “Shōgun”) is a standout, nearly unrecognizable as crime lord Vincent Gigante.
“The Alto Knights” doesn’t quite reach the emotional and existential heights of “The Irishman,” but it has a similar tone, looking back on a long career of (cinematic) violence. There’s an observation at the end that this was the only way for immigrants in the 20th century to grasp at the American Dream, an idea that churns within all American gangster movies. This curio of a film could have gone deeper into what it means to be a gangster, but its core themes resonate all the same.
Katie Walsh is a Tribune News Service film critic.
