"Two of New York City's most notorious organized crime bosses vie for control of the city's streets. Once best friends, petty jealousies and a series of betrayals set them on a deadly collision course." 

OUR MOVIE REVIEW:

The Alto Knights is a movie about friendship- sort of. When Vito, the boss of all mob bosses, left New York for Italy, he left control of the Mafia empire to Frank. Now that Vito is back, he expects Frank to hand control back over- just like that. Obviously for Vito, it's not that simple. After this conflict is set up, we're immediately subjected to a recurring theme of showing the same regurgitated photo of Vito and Frank flashing on the screen to remind us that "they were FRIENDS, what went WRONG?"

Things continue to ramble on with no plot and no path, cutting around flashy found footage like a film student who just discovered the concept of a montage. It really lacks cohesion. Any time we jump out of these montages and back into a scene, it feels like the start of a new movie. My husband and I frequently turned to each other in the theater to ask if either of us knew what was going on.

And now, The Alto Knights' one and only party trick: Robert DeNiro's double role as both Vito and Frank. He's a great actor, it's undeniable. But DeNiro is at his best when he's acting like himself (Frank) and at worst, uncanny when he's doing an obvious impression of Joe Pesci (Vito). As much as I appreciate the effort, it would have better served the story to cast anyone else as Vito. There are several scenes where both DeNiros play directly opposite each other, which slow the movie to a crawl, just to tout its one gimmick. The filmmakers seem to act as if this digital camera trickery wasn't already developed back in 1989 for Back To The Future Part II and perfected in 1998's The Parent Trap. Both of which do a better job at pulling off double roles. Not to mention two more films *this year* have accomplished the same feat seamlessly.

It's a shame that what should have been a profound story turned out so lackluster. The finale was actually really well done and felt like a breath of fresh air, but only reminded me that this was the only real scene in the movie that wasn't sandwiched by exhausting amounts of pointless exposition, which is sometimes literally explained to us through the fourth wall. It's not The Irishman. It's *certainly* no Goodfellas. It's bland, tired, and unfortunate. Fuhgeddaboudit.