Film reviews: The Alto Knights | Flow | When Autumn Falls

You get two Robert De Niros for the price of one in gangster epic The Alto Knights, writes Alistair Harkness

The Alto Knights (15) ★★★☆☆

Flow (U) ★★★★★

When Autumn Falls (12A) ★★★★☆

It’d be churlish to criticise Robert De Niro gangster epic The Alto Knights too much for its similarities to Goodfellas. Written by Nicholas Pileggi, who adapted his own book Wise Guy into the aforementioned Scorsese classic before going on to script Casino for Scorsese as well, it’s easy to imagine this biographical crime drama about a real life mafia rivalry as the final part of a loose trilogy exploring the spread of organised crime in America. Or it would have been easy had De Niro not already collaborated with Scorsese on The Irishman. As it stands, the actor’s return to this world, this time for veteran director Barry Levinson, suffers a little from the baggage he and Pileggi bring to it. Stick with it, though, and the story gradually exerts its own grip, in part thanks to De Niro’s ability to transcend what could have been his own stunt casting in the dual roles of mob boss frenemies Frank Costello and Vito Genovese.

Sporting a prosthetic schnozz to play the cool-headed Costello, and a prosthetic chin to play the live-wire Genovese, De Niro soon makes you forget about the superficial grotesquery of the make-up. Taking a two-sides-of-the-same-coin approach to the characters, he uses his their shared childhood bond (the grew up together) as a jumping off point to craft two distinct personalities, with Costello cultivating an air of respectability and legitimacy that enables him to consolidate power in a way that the impetuous Genovese can’t fully understand.

Robert De Niro plays two roles in The Alto Knights | Warner Bros

Opening with a botched attempt on Costello’s life, the film tracks their disintegrating relationship as Frank works on an exit strategy that will enable him to leave the life and live out his golden years with his beloved wife, Bobby (a no-nonsense Debrah Messing), while Vito tries to wrest power from him in the most chaotic, score-settling way possible.

Having long-ago directed the lavish, Oscar-nominated 1991 gangster epic Bugsy, Levinson still knows his way around this genre and has plenty of cinematic tricks up his sleeve, as in the moment he cross-cuts between a scene of Frank watching James Cagney classic White Heat and a silhouetted shot of Vito murdering some poor schmuck on a tenement rooftop filled with washing lines and white sheets drying in the breeze – an incredible image that simultaneously signifies the impossibility of erasing the stain of violence from the domestic realm while interrogating (and celebrating) the gangster film’s enduring appeal.

Flow | Contributed

Flow was this year’s deserved winner of the Oscar for best animated feature. Made by Latvian filmmaker Gints Zilbalodis using open source software, it’s a wondrous tale of a cat attempting to survive a biblical-style flood by teaming up with various other animals – including a Labrador, a capybara and a lemur – and embarking on a picaresque adventure that takes in ancient ruins and giant sea creatures. Eschewing dialogue and any hint of anthropomorphism, the film’s painterly, DIY approach is thoroughly enchanting, liable to hold audiences rapt if they’re six or 60.

Prolific French director François Ozon returns with When Autumn Falls, a chilly, Claude Chabrol-influenced morality play revolving around a kindly-seeming grandmother (Hélène Vincent) with a dark secret whose testy relationship with her cash-strapped daughter (Ludivine Sagnier) takes a malevolent turn when she’s prevented from seeing her grandson. To say any more risks ruining the many twisty pleasures to be found in this exquisitely acted, slow-burning drama, not least Vincent’s gently sinister performance.

All films in cinemas from 21 March