Mafia Saga Serves Up Double De Niro

If you’re going to take a shot at the king, you’d better not miss.

That aphorism, credited to everyone from Ralph Waldo Emerson to Omar on “The Wire,” could be one of the unspoken Cosa Nostra credos in “The Alto Knights,” a dense yet fiercely compelling gathering of some of the heaviest hitters in the contemporary gangster genre: “Goodfellas” screenwriter Nicholas Pileggi, “Bugsy” director Barry Levinson and acting icon Robert De Niro in a dual role. That latter stunt makes for a novel hook — one-upping the Pacino-De Niro sit-down in “Heat” by serving up double De Niro as underworld friends-turned-rivals Frank Costello and Vito Genovese, both of whom he embodies beneath heavy makeup.

The movie abruptly kicks off in 1959, with a botched execution in the lobby of Frank’s New York apartment building — a tense, effective scene that finds Levinson operating like the old pro.(Without beating a dead horse, after the shocking sloppiness of Francis Ford Coppola’s “Megalopolis,” it’s a relief to see a helmer his age in command of his craft.) The rest is narrated from the distant future, for Frank is not dead, and he intends to get even. The bullet miraculously strikes his scalp and bends around his head, and though Frank recognizes the gunman as one of Vito’s goons (Cosmo Jarvis as “The Chin”), he respects the code and tells the police nothing.

It’s Vito who has broken one of the cardinal rules, never to strike another boss, and though payback would be both expected and appropriate for such a mistake, Frank has no interest in escalating the violence. With an eye toward retirement, he prefers to slow-cook his revenge — the results of which ultimately forced the U.S. government and press to acknowledge the existence of the mafia — in a high-impact true story it’s hard to believe Hollywood hadn’t dramatized until now.

“The Alto Knights” spans multiple decades, as Pileggi’s detailed script rewinds to explain how a group of amoral immigrants exploited Prohibition, which Frank wryly describes as a policy no one wanted to follow and which the authorities were loath to enforce. Working for Charlie “Lucky” Luciano, they began at the bottom, but worked their way up to the Commission, the top tier of the Cosa Nostra.

When Levinson first flashes back to Frank and Vito’s early days, the production boosts credibility by presenting vintage black-and-white stills, doctored to include the cast. Here, “The Alto Knights” recalls other gangster pictures — a few starring De Niro, like “Once Upon a Time in America” and “The Godfather Part II” — about the scrappy origins of future bosses. For a stretch, Frank and Vito were almost like brothers, though the latter always had the hotter temper, which explains why the Sicilian-born Vito fled the country to evade a murder rap, turning his share of the business over to Frank in his absence.

The timeline can be tricky at first, especially as audiences train themselves to distinguish between Frank and Vito. The former has a long fake nose and no mole, while Vito sports a square jaw and dark glasses — though they appear at so many different stages in the duo’s lives that it takes a moment to clock which character De Niro’s playing in any given scene. That gets easier as the film goes on, since the actor creates two distinct characters, not dissimilar to (though more subtly delineated than) the Kray twins Tom Hardy played in “Legend.”

Snappily dressed and conspicuously ensconced in a Central Park penthouse, Frank has spent his career gravitating toward legitimacy, presenting himself as a “professional gambler” to politicians and dirty cops who welcome his support. He lines their pockets, and they look the other way — but that still doesn’t make him one of them. Frank is presented as the honorable one here, reflected in his decades-long marriage (Debra Messing plays his Jewish wife Bobbie). The couple is depicted as both monogamous and supportive, which is a refreshing rarity in mobster movies.

Meanwhile, hot-headed Vito’s spirit remains closer to the streets. He openly resents Frank’s efforts to abandon their roots, but is angriest at his old friend for not giving him a bigger piece of the pie when he returns from abroad, ruling lower Manhattan by blood and bullets. Few screenwriters seem to know the organized crime world better than Pileggi, and though he glides over certain motivations, he more than compensates by embroidering his sprawling saga with incredible, unforgettable details — like the one where Vito stages a modest New Jersey home to convince journalists he’s an ordinary guy.

In his youth, De Niro brought a jumpy, unpredictable energy to multiple Martin Scorsese projects, but that’s not at all the portrait Levinson and company are painting here. “The Alto Knights” shows the mafia as a collection of liver-spotted alter kakers, bickering over the most ridiculous things. Vito’s always ready to engage, shouting at the TV screen when Frank goes before Sen. Estes Kefauver’s committee (“Take the Fifth!” becomes a kind of “Who’s on First” routine as editor Douglas Crise volleys back and forth between the two De Niros).

Another instant classic is the heated trial between Vito and his ex-wife Anna (Kathrine Narducci), who starts name-calling in court — not a smart idea, once we’ve seen how violent Vito can get. Though there’s no shortage of whackings and other spectacular moments unfolding before DP Dante Spinotti’s cameras, the tone of “The Alto Knights” is decidedly less glamorous than your typical gangster movie, which is built right into De Niro’s slightly pathetic body language: the stooped shoulders and shuffling gait. He’s still lethal as a shark behind the eyes, however.

Unlike “The Irishman,” which unconvincingly de-aged its cast via distracting CGI, this film relies on prosthetics and makeup to transform De Niro as needed. That approach works better, interfering less with the maestro’s performance(s), while sleight of hand allows the actor to appear opposite himself in a handful of scenes. If there was any doubt as to De Niro’s greatness, it’s laid to rest in these face-to-face confrontations. No star could’ve held his own quite so effectively against De Niro. These surreal staring matches reach beyond the two characters, encompassing the full range of a filmography from which there seems to be no retirement, just bold late-career risks from a professional gambler.