In 1995, Michael Mann's "Heat" gave cinephiles a face-off for the ages: at long last, legendary actors Robert De Niro and Al Pacino would share the screen in an epic crime thriller. Now, in 2025, we have a new crime thriller that has Robert De Niro coming face-to-face with ... Robert De Niro. This isn't such a bad idea: despite a string of questionable roles in the latter half of his long, acclaimed career, De Niro remains one of our finest actors, and he's turned in some recent performances — specifically his work in two Martin Scorsese movies, "The Irishman" and "Killers of the Flower Moon" — that prove he's still got it.

With Barry Levinson's "The Alto Knights," De Niro pulls double duty, playing two real-life gangsters who grew up as friends before becoming bitter enemies. There's a lot of room for potential mob movie fun here, and yet, Levinson's film...