For the Sake of Argument

Keep your feelings to yourself.

Robert De Niro during promotion for The Alto Knights.

Having devoted four decades and about a million words in print and broadcast to criticism, there are a few things I can say with authority:

1. For many people, dogs are calming.

2. Balancing a spoon on your nose is difficult.

3. “____ sucks” is not criticism.

It may be true. It may be false. It may be far too subjective to be taken seriously. For example, I could say that “Vegemite sucks,” because that is my truth. It is a breakfast spread, after all, made primarily of yeast. But not everybody agrees. To be more specific: Australia.

Likewise, just to stay within the food-spread category, many hazelnut lovers believe strongly that Nutella is the best thing ever. But if I swallow one spoonful, I will go into anaphylactic shock. Which is arguably not the best thing ever.

The key word in that sentence is “arguably.” Criticism is not a feeling. It is not a reflex, or a distilled expression of doctrine or an article of faith. It is a judgment derived from a process that, like a jury verdict, weighs many elements — which is to say, having no validity absent a trial in which advocates for the prosecution and defense make a case.

I promise you, in such a case — let’s say, The People v. Dogs — the district attorney can fill a stadium with witnesses who are scared AF of all canines. Even Waldo, who lives down the street from me and is 18 years old, weighs about 13 pounds and makes a Tyrannosaurus look like a Hare Krishna. He is the Ed Gein of pets.

Which is why daily, when I walk Henry, our small and extraordinarily indifferent white dog, I carry a flamethrower.

Do I digress? Sorry. You will probably be surprised to discover that this essay is about Robert De Niro.

He, of course, is one of the world’s most prominent movie actors. The Godfather, Raging Bull, Taxi Driver, The King of Comedy, The Deer Hunter, Goodfellas, Bang the Drum Slowly, Awakenings, Midnight Run and about 6,000 more. The only movie he wasn’t in since 1971 was PeeWee’s Big Adventure.

His most recent film, for the Max streaming channel, is titled The Alto Knights, written by Nicholas Pileggi and directed by Barry Levinson after many years of wending its way through Hollywood. Most films that have taken such a tortuous route are much the worse for it, because too many cooks and studio executives spoil the broth. “Oh, here’s a delightful chowder that nobody wants to finance. Let’s take out the clams and add Nutella and Vegemite!” This has not happened in The Alto Knights. It is a compelling, historically interesting, well paced character study of two 1950s mob bosses, Frank Costello and Vito Genovese. The big attraction is that both parts are played by Robert De Niro. The real triumph of the movie — more on this in a moment — is that 10 minutes in you’ve entirely forgotten that he’s both leads. You’re watching distinct characters play out a saga, not some sort of actor’s vanity gimmick.

So here, from RottenTomatoes.com, is the so-called critics “consensus” on The Alto Knights:

A competent but tired retread of mob movie tropes, The Alto Knights pits De Niro vs. De Niro with no real victor emerging.

I know, right? So tired. Like Saving Private Ryan and All Quiet on the Western Front and The Great Escape and The Longest Day. Nothing but guns and Germans, Guns and Germans. Does nobody have a fresh idea?

Or Groundhog Day, My Cousin Vinny, When Harry Met Sally, A Fish Called Wanda, Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Joke. Laugh. Joke. Laugh. Joke. Laugh. Enough already with the hilarity.

And, yes, speaking of tropes, the annals of Hollywood classics are overflowing with showdowns that yield decisive victory: High Noon. Jaws. Star Wars. 12 Angry Men. Goldfinger. North by Northwest. It’s a Wonderful Life. Rear Window. The Untouchables. The Third Man. Casablanca. Which is evidently what makes The Alto Knights so tired and retreaded. It doesn’t have the guts to go against the grain and accept ambiguity.

Or so says the consensus of those writers on obscure dotcoms who identify as critics. Bless their hearts.

May I take this opportunity to remind you that even consensus requires synthesis, context and general due diligence. I mean, consensus elected Donald Trump and made ”We are the World” a chartbuster. It only means that many people can resort to careless judgment at the same time.

Courtesy of Rotten Tomatoes, here are some excerpts from critical pans by the allegedly professional critics:

“This feels like a Netflix mini-series edited down to two sleepy, derivative hours.”

“... a pale reflection of the classics of the genre he made in earlier days.”

“This movie proves two Robert De Niros are not better than one.”

I’m not using the authors’ names to save them from embarrassment. But, come on. It “feels like” a repurposed Netflix mini-series? My God, if I ever need a lawyer to fashion a persuasive argument on my behalf, I hope it’s not you. You want to make a case? Produce some evidence. Take your feelings to your shrink.

Concerning the accusation of “pale imitation,” the same objection applies. How do you back that claim up? Except for the period costumes and scenery, and the general milieu, what is this imitative of? The Godfather? No. Not at all. That and The Godfather Part II are family sagas. Goodfellas? Nope, that’s a parable of perverse American values and an epic character study with one gorgeous/horrible/virtuosic Scorsese scene after another. The Untouchables? Nope. Cops and robbers.

I guess the hats and cars are similar. Otherwise, the mob classics have little in common, cinematically, narratively or psychologically. You may as well compare King Kong to Dora the Explorer.

Also, where is the sense in finding fault compared to another movie, especially a hypothetical other movie? That’s just stupid. Argument is built on fact, not supposition. I love Matisse. Does that make Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot just some clown? If you are writing a review based not on what an artwork is but what it isn’t, the clown is you.

But now let’s return to that fantastic line, “This movie proves two Robert De Niros are not better than one.”

Youch! Sick burn. Problem is, it violates the cardinal rule I learned from revered New York Times drama critic Walter Kerr: never let the opportunity for a quip color your argument. That’s not criticism; it’s performance. Disingenuous performance.

Because I can make an argument that the genius of The Alto Knights is precisely the opposite of the one-liner. I’ve already said De Niro immediately makes you forget he is both lead actors — with different values, motivations, psyches and temperaments, not to mention noses.

All of which, with the help of Pileggi’s (shall we say) dry-aged script is fleshed out again and again without any awkward exposition taking place. And this is a very talky movie. But the naturalism of the dialogue is itself borderline miraculous. And I might add that the Costello-Genovese feud is all richly documented. If you’re looking for a comparison flick, I’d recommend Titantic or Dunkirk. You know how they end while you’re still buying popcorn, but you are somehow still in suspense straight through.

Not to say The Alto Knights is flawless. It is not. I’d give it 3½ out of 5 stars. For (literally) starters, the title — meant to convey that the relationship between the mobsters traces to their days as teen hooligans — is as indifferent as Henry, the small white dog. What’s it gonna be about? The Vienna Boys Choir during the Crusades?

I also can’t escape De Niro’s particular technique for convincingly distinguishing between two characters frequently sharing the same screen. It’s a trick.

Not digital Movie Magic or makeup or some physical tic he relies on to inhabit both characters. Nope, it’s much simpler than that. He pulls it off by channeling not just two different characters, but two different character actors: himself, as Costello, and Joe Pesci as Genovese. It’s uncanny. So I guess if you want to claim “derivativeness,” you could argue that the chowder does have a bit of the flavor of Goodfellas Part II.

There’s also the issue of moral truth.

As a matter of classic dramaturgy, a conflict must divide a protagonist from an antagonist — which requires the filmmakers and the audience to play Good Sociopath/Bad Sociopath. Francis Ford Coppola somehow succeeded in the Godfather movies. Just as Martin Scorsese (and Pileggi) did in Goodfellas, But, sympathizing with De Niro’s Gangland Predator 1 over his Gangland Predator 2 doesn’t (how did that guy put it?) “feel” right. It’s a devil’s bargain for the filmmakers and audience alike. And, yes counselor, the defense stipulates that their dispute mirrors Don Corleone’s and Paulie’s “no drugs” edicts in those other De Niro classics.

But it is not a reason not to marvel at the gifts of this remarkable actor. Instead you should race to watch it before the jerks at Warner Bros./Max gun it down in a barbershop, Genovese style.

Now, finally, I want to return to comparing dissimilar movies with one another and invoke Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 Dr. Strangelove, for my money the greatest satire in movie history. It starred Peter Sellers in not two but three lead roles: RAF Captain Mandrake visiting a U.S. strategic bomber base, U.S. President Merkin Muffley and ex-Nazi rocket scientist Strangelove himself. It is difficult to imagine any multi-role performance its equal. But each character — especially Strangelove — is a caricature, a comic actor’s playground. Affectation and hyperbole were the whole point.

De Niro resorts to neither. Look, I still think Sellers is more virtuosic, in part because the familiar narcotics-sales argument between the two De Niros has somewhat weakened my own argument. However, should you choose to ignore Rotten Tomatoes and watch The Alto Knights, look for nuance, look for fine details, look for simple command of lines on a page and ask yourself if — in this good but not great film — are you watching a repurposed Netflix series or a performance of Bach’s Concerto for Two Violins in D minor, with both parts played by Paganini?

I don’t know the answer. I’m still in an argument with myself. But not about the Dora the Explorer line. That stays.