As you might already know, a test screening for Barry Levinson’s “Alto Knights” happened on Wednesday evening in Pasadena, California. I already posted one reaction. Here’s another one, but, this time, it’s a total pan:
I was at the Alto Knights test screening last Wednesday at the Regal Paseo as well. I had a completely different takeaway; one of the worst films I had ever seen tested, and a huge letdown given the pedigree. De Niro plays the dual roles to almost no end, and it results in a movie where the two main characters can only interact while sitting perfectly still across from one another, on opposite ends of a table. The entire story hinges on the dissolution of a lifelong friendship between two mobster, and the eventual betrayal in the form of an assassination attempt. But it takes no time to explore the foundation of that friendship before the feud is already underway. There are a handful of really outstanding sequences, but between the dull and obliging “wife character,” they stick Debra Messing in, and some really sloppy filmmaking, it doesn’t amount to anymore than the sum of its parts. It looks like there’s 10 months to fix things up, but I can’t see a path to salvaging this without at least some reshoots.