The Alto Knights has a Goodfellas feel about it and for good reason.
It is written by Nicholas Pileggi who co-wrote that highly lauded crime actioner, alongside Martin Scorsese.
In short, this one charts the rise of the Mafia on the mean streets of New York.
Foremost among their number are two leading crime bosses, childhood friends and now fierce adversaries.
Their names are Frank Costello and Vito Genovese, both played by Robert DeNiro, who was also the star of Goodfellas.
While Scorsese was at the helm of the 1990 gangster drama, this time it is Barry Levinson pulling the strings.
Costello, long married to elegant and caring Jewish wife Bobbie (Debra Messing), is level-headed, considered and calculating.
Genovese, a vicious, paranoid hot head and womaniser, is his anthesis.
It is Genovese who heads the crime lords before fleeing to the mother country (Italy) for 15 years, with Costello taking over in the interim.
Upon his return, Genovese fully expects to be handed back control. He won’t even contemplate a power sharing arrangement.
For Genovese, there is no listening to reason. He does what he wants when he wants.
The movie starts out with a botched hit on Costello in the lift of his prestigious apartment building, orchestrated by none other than Genovese.
Shot in the head by bagman Vincent Gigante (Cosmo Jarvis), Costello survives to tell his tale, while Genovese rides Gigante hard from thereon in.
Genovese also continues to relentlessly square off against Costello.
Their fellow crime heads are seemingly powerless to negotiate any peaceful compromise.
Genovese’s offhanded treatment of others extends to the woman he woos, who becomes his wife, nightclub owner Anna (Kathrine Narducci).
Forever wanting his cut, Genovese’s jealousy and skimming knows no bounds and the pair face off in court.
Nor does Genovese buy it when Costello tells him he wants out of the business. From there, matters escalate.
Incidentally, the film’s title comes from the once-prominent Manhattan social club of the Genovese crime family. Social clubs were a home away from home for mobsters to fraternise with their partners in crime.
The Alto Knights is a slick mobster film.
DeNiro does a fine job playing opposite himself. With no satisfying Genovese, the yin and yang personalities DeNiro portrays result in compelling cinema.
The violence is both explicit and suggestive. Anger and distrust abound.
The henchmen and lower-level crime titans are well established in this melting pot of suspicion and power plays.
Cosmo Jarvis makes his mark as the physically imposing but ultimately cowering, subjugated and apologetic hit man.
Debra Messing impresses in a controlled showing as Costello’s steadfast wife.
There is fire in the belly of Kathrine Narducci as Genovese’s wronged spouse.
Production design on the picture is one of its many features.
Dante Spinotti’s cinematography transports us back to the era when the movie is set, namely the 1950s.
Interspersed historic black and white footage gives the film a greater air of authenticity.
Finishing on a nicely orchestrated high (I am deliberately being evasive to avoid spoilers), The Alto Knights has impact and smarts.
Rated MA, it scores an 8 out of 10.
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