ALTO KNIGHTS, THE

(director/writer: Barry Levinson; screenwriter: Nicholas Pileggi; cinematographer: Dante Spinotti; editor: Douglas Crise; music: David Fleming; cast: Robert De Niro (Frank Costello/Vito Genovese), Debra Messing (Bobby Costello), Cosmo Jarvis (Vincent “The Chin” Gigante), Kathrine Narducci (Anna Genovese), Michael Rispoli (Albert Anastasia), Michael Adler (Senator Charles Tobey), Ed Amatrudo (Rudolph Halley), Joe Bacino (Joe Profaci), Anthony J. Gallo (Tommy Lucchese), Wallace Langham (Senator Estes Kefauver), Louis Mustillo (Joe Bonanno), Frank Piccirillo (Richie Boiardo), Matt Servitto (George Wolf), Robert Uricola (Tony Bender); Runtime: 200; MPAA Rating: R; producers: Barry Levinson, Irwin Winkler, Jason Sosnof, Charles Winkler, David Winkler; Warner Brothers; 2025)

“I expected better.”

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz


Barry Levinson (“Diner”/”The Survivor”) directs this well-crafted but so-so old-fashioned mob film and co-writes it with veteran mob writer Nicholas Pileggi. But I expected better than an average film from such a talented filmmaker.

In 1957, there’s an open power struggle between veteran mafia bosses Vito Genovese and Frank Costello, both played by Robert De Niro. In 1959 Vito orders a hit on Frank, who miraculously survives.

The NYC gambler mob boss Costello is out that evening at Manhattan’s Copacabana nightclub with his Jewish wife Bobbie (Debra Messing). When returning to his Manhattan Central Park penthouse, Vito sends an assassin (Cosmo Jarvis) who shoots him in the head while he’s in the elevator. Frank survives, and decides to retire and leave the mob leadership to Vito. Frank wants to now go legit as a professional gambler.

In the back-story we learn the older Frank became boss when the loose-cannon psychopath Vito fled to Italy to escape from a double-murder charge. There are also flashbacks of them in happier times playing together as youths growing up in NYC.

Highlights also include the time Vito was insulted Frank was a no show for his party on his return to America, and never forgot this slight.

The crime drama tells how the organization grew strong over the unpopularity of Prohibition, but it offers nothing new to the typical mob film.

The title is derived from the club Alto Knights, where during the Prohibition era Frank and Vito hung out.

REVIEWED ON 3/31/2025  GRADE: B-
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