Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the Film myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.Disney has fairytale princesses. Everyone else has gangsters. Yet implausible as it might sound, some mob movies have stayed unmade. And so we have The Alto Knights, a new old tale of Mafia lore from veteran director Barry Levinson (Rain Man, Bugsy). The movie comes steeped in true crime history, an account of the soured friendship between fabled mobsters Vito Genovese and Frank Costello set in 1950s New York. To play the dapper and pragmatic Costello, we have Robert De Niro. Opposite, as hothead Genovese, we have — Robert De Niro. In hard times for Hollywood, a saving will have at least been made on actors’ trailers. From the start, the stunt casting gives the movie an uncertain feel. Back in 2015, the one-man double act was also used in Legend, with Tom Hardy playing both Kray twins. As it was there, the result is a story of violent men with an oddly larky undertow. Yet you also sense yourself being invited to see something grand on screen: an American epic that opens with a hit gone wrong, and a gunshot shattering a mirror. Levinson makes sure we see the fractured glass, to prep us for a jagged story structure. The movie pieces together the tale of two old pals from Little Italy whose bond breaks when Genovese returns from European exile to reclaim the role of boss he once leased to Costello.But you catch sight of stray reflections in that mirror too. One is the career of De Niro, whose dual turn here is kept company by the ghosts of countless more. (The movie can feel like being inside the actor’s head watching his whole professional life flash before his eyes.) Scenes of hoodlum boyhood are pure Once Upon a Time in America. Framing devices of old age recall Martin Scorsese’s under-seen The Irishman. And of course, there is Goodfellas, scripted by the writer here, Nicholas Pileggi. If it sounds like I’m simply listing other movies, blame this one. Levinson leans in hard to the tropes of heritage gangster picture, unchallengingly familiar, heavy on the silk suits and sit-downs in the back of the store. The approach does strange things to your sense of time. Traces of the actual Genovese have shown up in Joe Pesci’s performance in Goodfellas, and the story of Richie Aprile in The Sopranos. But the handling here is so deferential, the film feels like an afterthought to both.It’s a shame. There is a real story somewhere here, but Levinson seems unsure what to do with it, and often only half interested. The movie is at once too fast and too slow, rattling through rich historical detail while other episodes drift and drag. Do we have to shout “cut!” ourselves? The lesson is there in that very first scene. Every job needs the right finger on the trigger.★★★☆☆In cinemas from March 21
