The Alto Knights

Review: What’s worse than wasting Robert De Niro in a boring movie? Doing that twice. In this 2025 release, De Niro plays both of the lead roles of crime bosses Frank Costello & Vito Genovese. And that’s really all there is to say about this movie. *Proceeds to say more* It had some ingredients that seemed like it would make a good film. De Niro in any film is typically a good sign, but especially in a mob movie. An Oscar-winning director in Barry Levinson. Screenwriter Nicholas Pileggi who was a co-writer on ‘Goodfellas.’ And a Golden Globe-nominated supporting actress in Debra Messing. And then the film just falls flat. A quick Google search shows that the film (or an early version of it) had been in development hell since the 1970s with every major studio passing on it before Warner Bros. finally signed on in 2022. Very rarely is a film that is caught up for that long a success. And this film wasn’t a success in any way. If you asked me if I’d rather watch a boring movie or a bad movie, I’d answer bad movie almost every time. But my answer would never be a bad boring movie, which is what this was. Man I feel bad I’m kind of dogging on this movie, but oh well.

High: If gangster films are your thing, you’ll probably leave this film feeling good. That’s not my personal favorite genre, but if you like people getting killed, crime, and a boss pulling all the strings, maybe this film is for you. However, I feel as though it’s appeal is very limited to general audiences.

Low: I thought the double dose of De Niro could be cool, but it just felt like a gimmick. I feel as though the role of Vito was very obviously intended for Robert Duvall but instead we just got Bobby D executing two extremely similar performances.

Rating: 3.5/10