Review
DULCIE PEARCE
The Alto Knights review: Robert De Niro’s performance will leave audiences trembling – but film only shines at the end
It is far too late for The Alto Knights to even pretend it could take The Godfather’s crown
The Alto Knights
(15), 123mins
★★★☆☆
ON the face of it, this is an offer cinema-goers can’t refuse – Robert De Niro as two mob bosses for the price of one.
In this Godfather-style film based on a true story, the Oscar-winning actor plays both Frank Costello and Vito Genovese.
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They start out as friends from New York City’s streets who rise to the top of the Mafia, only to fall out over which one of them should be in control.
Frank, who was known as the Prime Minister of the Underworld in New York, is a schemer who “can see round corners” and attempts to maintain an air of respectability.
Vito, on the other hand, is a raging bull, willing to bump off anyone standing in his way.
De Niro is at his best as the explosive mobster, putting in a psychotic performance that will leave audiences trembling.
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But most of The Alto Knights focuses on the cool-headed Frank, whose politicking is more Starmer than Trump.
Shot in head
Nevertheless, this is a reminder of De Niro’s incredible talents, because with the help of a prosthetic nose he pulls off the trick of convincingly playing two very different men.
The movie begins with Frank being shot in the head by one of Vito’s hitmen as he enters his apartment building in 1957.
What follows is a mixture of flashbacks to the pair’s past and the story of how the Prime Minister of the Underworld tries to resign from his position. That might sound easy but a deeply paranoid Vito doesn’t trust his friend-turned-foe to retire gracefully.
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That might sound easy but a deeply paranoid Vito doesn’t trust his friend-turned-foe to retire gracefully.
The Alto Knights, which is the name of the social club where the pair used to hang out, would have been a much better film if more time had been spent building up the backstory.
But director Barry Levinson, best known for Rain Man and Good Morning Vietnam, fails to show the audience how close Vito and Frank once were.
As a result, their fall-out is desperately short of the drama it deserves.
Only at the end, when the audience gets to see an infamous meeting of the US’s top gangsters in rural Apalachin in New York State does this truly begin to shine.
But by then, it is far too late for The Alto Knights to even pretend it could take The Godfather’s crown.
Disney's Snow White
(PG) 109 mins
★★★☆☆
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THERE have been so many versions of The Brothers Grimm’s 1812 fairytale Snow White that Disney felt the need to put its name in front of this title.
That way you know it’s going to be a live-action remake of the one where seven dwarfs sing hi-ho and the princess wears a yellow and blue dress.
And being Disney, it also means the story has been robbed of any of the drama and menace of the original.
Gal Gadot’s wicked witch stepmother is a comedy baddie carrying all the threat of apple juice while the huntsman looks like he would think twice about felling a tree, let alone callously dispatching a young woman.
But if you are a five-year-old who loves wearing princess dresses, this film should be a delight.
Rachel Zegler as Snow White carries this musical’s new tunes with perfection and her “true love” is inoffensive Robin Hood-style character, Jonathan.
What will entertain film fans of all ages, though, are the computer-generated dwarves who do all the heavy lifting with their gags and slapstick humour.
They’re not just little helpers, they’re little saviours.
- By Grant Rollings
Flow
(U), 85 mins
★★★★☆
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THIS year’s Oscar ceremony was short on surprise winners – apart from Flow.
Who would have thought the Americans would pick a dialogue-free Latvian production for Best Animated Film?
So what’s it about? Puss in boat.
An unnamed black cat in an unidentified land is caught up in a massive flood.
The petrified, yet brave creature finds its way into an old sailing vessel, occupied by a narcoleptic rodent capybara.
In a cuter version of Noah’s ark, animals get on board one by one, including a kleptomaniac lemur and an excitable labrador.
This motley crew will keep little ones entertained and cat lovers will be fans of the main character.
What surely won over Oscar voters, though, is the dreamy animation, with colourful fishes, majestic buildings and a sky filled with stars.
But the constant peril, where the cat uses up far more than nine lives, does start to feel repetitive by the end of the movie.
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There’s only so many times you can watch an animal almost drown and be entertained.
- By Grant Rollings
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