Peneflix MOVIE REVIEWS BY PENEFLIX
Director Barry Levinson and actor Robert De Niro have a long and varied filmic relationship: “Sleepers”, “Wag the Dog” “What Just Happened”, “The Wizard of Lies”, and present day “The Alto Knights”; De Niro bests his previous roles depicting gangsters Frank Costello and Vito Genovese; never are viewers confused as to who is who. It is a homage to men whose career choices were limited as Italian immigrants; instead of damning them, the film resonates with “what if’s”, they might have been pillars, instead of pariahs, of the community. Vito and Frank were childhood friends, reduced to enemies (“The Godfather”, The Irishman”, “Donnie Brasco”) because of ill-gotten circumstances. De Niro’s ardent performance legitimizes both Mafioso: flawed, reality-stricken and doomed. Writer Nicholas Pileggi (“Casino”, “GoodFellas”) pungently tries to recreate the dynamic chemistry of an iconic conversation in “Heat” between Robert De Niro and Al Pacino; unfortunately, the intended electricity, fizzled.
The Alto Knights is the name of a social club in NYC’s Little Italy, where safety was guaranteed to its malfeasant members.The film vacillates between the historical flaying of the past, and the violation of trust. What I admired was the absence of grisly, gruesome gore, replaced by a nostalgic aura reminiscent of timeless gangster movies, where protagonists were Knights of Malice and Mayhem.
THREE STARS!!!
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