Two De Niro roles yield mixed results

   

   

  Robert De Niro plays two roles in The Alto Knights, a movie about a 1950s power struggle between two New York mobsters. The double dose of De Niro doesn't mean that The Alto Knights, directed by Barry Levinson and written by mob maven Nicholas Pileggi, is twice as good as every other cinematic foray into Mafia world. 

   Put succinctly, The Alto Knights serves up a reasonably engaging slice of real mob history but lacks the thematic impact that makes a mob movie great.

   Appearing as gangsters Vito Genovese and Frank Castello, De Niro uses glasses and a prosthetic nose to differentiate between two men who grew up together in New York's Little Italy. De Niro's performances represent different sides of the same gangster coin, one impetuous and violent (Genovese); the other more discreet (Costello).

   Genovese and Costello eventually found themselves at loggerheads. After returning to the U.S. from a period of exile in Italy during World War II, Genovese wanted to regain control of the crime family Costello had taken over, an ambition that generated plenty of tabloid headlines. 

   Pileggi, who co-wrote the screenplays for Goodfellas and Casino with Martin Scorsese and who authored the books on which those movies were based, touches many signature Mafia events: the failed hit Genovese ordered on Costello; Costello's testimony before the Kefauver Committee that shed light on organized crime in 1951; and the ill-fated convention of Mafia bigwigs in Apalachin, New York in 1957.

   The rift between the two men centered on conflicting ideas about the role crime played in society and in their lives. Genovese reveled in the gangster life; Costello began to see himself as a businessman who could navigate the political and social settings that gave him a public profile. 

  Unlike Michael Corleone -- who kept his personal life and mob dealings separate -- both Genovese and Costello are candid with their wives. A terrific Kathrine Narducci portrays Anna Genovese, a fiery woman who operated drag and gay clubs in Manhattan and who stood up to Genovese's bullying.

  Debra Messing also scores in a quieter role. She portrays Costello's wife as a woman who seemed to enjoy the perks of prominence.

   A large supporting cast includes a couple of standouts. Cosmo Jarvis appears as Vincent "Chin" Gigante, the mobster who attempted to kill Costello. Michael Rispoli has a nice turn as Albert Anastasia, a Costello ally who in 1957 was gunned down in the barber shop of New York City's Park Central Hotel. 

   If you were alive in the 1950s, you may be familiar with headlines generated by mobsters with bold-faced profiles. For others, these characters may seem a bit remote. 

   Using news footage and some narration by Costello, Levinson  provides context for a story in which it's difficult to find a rooting interest, although our sympathies lean toward Costello. 

   The Alto Knights, by the way, is the name of the "social" club where Genovese and his subordinates gathered and where they watched Costello overplay his hand at the Kefauver hearings. It's fair to think of The Alto Knights as a hunk of inside mob baseball, a movie to be seen, even if it leaves us wanting something more.