A movie that brings war close

  In 2006, a platoon of Navy SEALs entered a two-story apartment building in Ramadi, Iraq. One apartment was still occupied.

  Through an interpreter, the SEALs informed the civilians that they wouldn't be hurt. The SEALs then  set up a post from which they observed the street, possibly preparing for trouble. They weren't sure what awaited them.

  In the new movie Warfare, the SEALs begin their mission after whooping it up in manic fashion while watching an exercise video featuring women in skimpy outfits. Like everything else in the movie, which chronicles a real incident, the scene is based on the accounts of SEALs who fought in the Iraq war.

   It doesn't take long for macho ritual, if that's what we're seeing, to give way to a forceful portrayal of relentless combat during the course of a single day.

    Director Alex Garland (Civil War) and co-director Ray Mendoza, who served as a Navy SEAL and advised Garland on the battle sequences in Civil War, team for a movie that eventually concentrates on SEAL efforts to evacuate the platoon from the besieged house, and more importantly, to save the lives of  two badly wounded SEALs.

    We don't know these men as fully developed characters, but as part of a team. Garland resists further elaboration. Early on, the dialogue consists mostly of military information related to the job. 

    The SEALs are well-equipped and have high-tech gear at their disposal. Yet, Garland makes us aware that beneath helmets and body armor, these men are made of flesh that can be torn apart and blood that can be spilled.

   Garland often allows the action to unfold in real-time, and sound designer Glenn Freemantle recreates the shock of explosions and their impact on woozy SEALS.  At one point, the SEALs request what's called "a show of force," and a jet buzzes the street with ear-shattering intensity. It's meant to distract the enemy.

    When one of the SEALs (Cosmo Jarvis) is severely wounded, his sustained screams are chilling. Another wounded SEAL (Joseph Quinn) begs for morphine.

    For most of the film, Garland almost makes us forget that innocent civilians, including children, remain in the house.  Maybe that's the point: The SEALs don't want the building's occupants to be hurt but they're busy fighting for their lives, tending to the wounded, and communicating with the SEALs who ultimately will come to their aid. They continue to function.

   Garland, Mendoza, and a cast that includes D'Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai and Charles Melton bring considerable skill to the task of making us feel the desperate urgency of a combat situation.

   So what to make of all this?

   I'm not sure how to process the movie beyond acknowledging its experiential power. Warfare isn't concerned with the rights or wrongs of the Iraq War. It's not about the policy decisions that led to the SEALs to combat; it operates on a narrower gauge, immersing us in a specific and dangerous moment in the Iraq War.

   If there's a conclusion to be drawn from all this, it may involve recognizing the stark gap between unseen policy makers and on-the-ground combatants. Who bothers with political thoughts when an IED delivers its shocking blow or when a friend and fellow SEAL is on the verge of bleeding out?

   Brutally effective, Warfare brings a vivid helping of Iraq war realism to the screen. Maybe that's enough of an accomplishment for a movie that reminds us that whatever else we might think about war, there's nothing abstract about it -- not for those who have to fight and possibly die.

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.