THE ALTO KNIGHTS Review: Comfortable Sleep Aid for Mob Movie Lovers

The opening of The Alto Knights is wildly disorienting and, frankly, embarrassing.

Viewers are placed in gangster Frank Costello's (Robert De Niro) point of view as he's shot, overwhelming the screen with double exposures, aggressive Dutch angles, and rapid cuts between these images and black-and-white flashbacks. It's the kind of thing that sets you on edge for what's to come in the next two hours.

Beyond the opening, the first 15 to 20 minutes offer several baffling choices that confuse the narrative and more than that, just what is going on. Costello narrates from the future (that we can't tell at first is the future), sometimes in an office, sometimes in a park, always directly addressing the camera without any framing for this set up.

The narrative moves forward in time after Costello survives the shooting for a bit before turning backwards to deliver a breakneck exposition/backstory montage and then places us at a starting point for the film proper that's before the opening shooting but doesn't properly orient viewers so it takes a moment to place yourself in time. Which becomes more confusing given that there are several instances of on screen text in what look like default fonts.

There are multiple awkward attempts at timeliness that come off like they're only in the movie to make liberal audiences feel morally superior. At one point Costello's wife Bobbie (Debra Messing) says with shock "is that ok that a Senator goes on a game show?" Towards the end a character gives a variation on the "these people accuse other people of the things they're doing" idiom that's become a staple on social media whenever stories of right wing evangelicals abusing children hit the news cycle. There's even acknowledgments of the United States' genocidal history and the overconsumption of natural resources.

The flashback montage, and several other moments in the movie, include archival footage of the violence that preceded and followed Costello's failed assassination by friend turned rival Vito Genovese (also De Niro) that feels at odds with the film's attempts at a standard biopic aesthetic. It's jarring to see images of real, violently murdered bodies in the middle of what is overwhelmingly a standard gangster movie with pedigree.

Because despite its many problems, overall The Alto Knights isn't bad actually, it's just boring. Which is a shame for a film that's been in development since the 70s, is written by Goodfellas scribe Nicholas Pileggi, is directed by Oscar-winner Barry Levinson (even if Levinson's been on a downturn since the 90s), and features one of our greatest actors in a dual role.

De Niro acquits himself well, particularly in the scenes that feature Vito and Frank in one on one conversation (something he apparently achieved by having someone stand in opposite him so he could play off them). The ensemble, rounded out at top by Kathrine Narducci, Michael Rispoli, and Cosmo Jarvis, doesn't offer anything surprising, but plays these archetypes (hysterical mob wife, old school honor-obsessed mafioso, new to the game "young" man who does things wrong) in a way that moves things along smoothly and comfortably.

It's that comfort that's the film's downfall more than any of its genuine flaws, though. Nothing here feels new or interesting. It's just another "based on a true story" period mob movie, one that feels derivative of the best films some of its creators made decades ago and more on par with recent middling efforts like Black Mass.

The film opens Friday, March 21, only in movie theaters, via Warner Bros. Visit the official site for more information.