The writer and podcaster Will Sloan returns for a show about Robert De Niro’s latest film, Barry Levinson’s The Alto Knights, where he plays two parts on screen, the mob boss Frank Costello and his hotheaded rival Vito Genovese, and their decades-long struggle for control of the New York mafia.
The Alto Knights was the pet project of Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav, who brought this expensive vanity production to the screen seemingly as a personal favour to the veteran screenwriter Nicholas Pileggi, a film made by elderly creatives that flopped hard at the box office on release. So why this project? And why is Robert De Niro playing both lead parts? This is what Will and I wanted to know, and so we discuss the failures of The Alto Knights along with a look at De Niro’s public persona as one of Trump’s biggest haters and how he can still deliver as a great actor from time to time, depending on the director.
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Trailer for The Alto Knights (Barry Levinson, 2025)