Rated: MA15+
Directed by: Barry Levinson
Written by: Nicholas Pileggi
Produced by: Irwin Winkler, Barry Levinson, Jason Sosonoff, Charles Winkler, David Winkler
Starring: Robert De Niro, Debra Messing, Cosmo Jarvis, Kathrine Narducci, Michael Rispoli.
‘You can’t have it both ways. You’re either in, or out.’
Based on true events.
Opening in 1957, The Alto Knights is the story of famed Frank Costello (Robert De Niro) and his childhood friend, Vito Genovese (also Robert De Niro) and the organised crime that rose during the prohibition.
It was illegal to sell alcohol in America, but not to drink it.
Vito and Frank saw a great way to make a lot of money under the table (not unlike the tobacco wars currently raging in Australia, cigarettes not illegal to sell but high tax creating a lucrative black market).
But Vito’s wild, bringing heat from law enforcement when he crosses the line and is charged with a double homicide.
Forced to leave New York and return to Italy, Vito hands the criminal syndicate to his friend, Frank, knowing he can trust him to hand back the leadership when he returns.
Then World War II erupts.
Vito couldn’t return to America for 15 years.
During those 15 years, Frank was able to grow the business quietly, using politics, like creating the ‘Donkey Vote’ and greasing palms.
He’s known as a professional gambler, is respected, donating to charities while politicians, judges clap and Frank bows in honour.
Meanwhile, Vito has made his money in drugs. He brings the drug racket to America to make his money. To be Boss again.
But the world has changed.
The Alto Knights is a story about two Bosses with very different styles – Vito fighting to be Boss again by any means, Frank trying to keep his reputation.
The story all told with a tinge of nostalgia as Frank narrates the story over flashbacks introduced with black and white photos used to depict mafia family history, like the reel of an old film the family slowly spirals out of the shadows where business can be done without the attention of the law and into the light for all to see because of a man trying to recapture what he’s been forced to let go; the change, the need to be back on top making him paranoid, unreasonable, unrelenting in both his work and love life.
Meet, Anna Genovese (Katherine Narducci).
‘It’s like he’s marrying himself,’ says Franks wife, Bobbie (Debra Messing).
After calling Bobbie ten times a day when Vito pushes Anna too far in his usual style of taking and doing what he wants, Bobbie exclaims to Frank, ‘She’s a moron, he’s a maniac and you’re on the front page of the newspaper.’
In comparison, Frank and Bobbie live a quiet life with their two dogs described as their children.
But Vito’s disintegrating marriage is splashing onto the business, tarnishing Franks reputation by association.
The foundation of the film is the difference between the two men. Frank and Vito sitting across a table from one another, one trying to reason, the other wanting to blow everything up.
It’s about the nuances of conversation, the circular talk, the yelling, the calming, the, ‘you’re an idiot’.
I enjoyed the wry humour and subtitles of these interactions between the ‘family’.
But it’s a little like a history lesson, the drama is the swing of the camera around the conversation of two men, talking life and death like they’re talking about roses in the garden.
There’s a calm in the telling making The Alto Knights not so much a gangster film but a reminiscing Boss talking about the old days.