Is The Alto Knights based on a true story? Details about the Robert De Niro gangster movie, explored

The upcoming crime drama film The Alto Knights recently released its trailer, which gave the audience a glimpse of a feud between two mob bosses, Vito Genovese and Frank Costello, both played by veteran Robert De Niro. The story is based on true events and focuses specifically on the rivalry between them.

Barry Levinson has directed the film and is known for Rain Man (1988), Bugsy (1991), Wag the Dog, and more. Nicholas Pileggi has written the script for this movie. He also wrote Goodfellas (1990), based on his story only Wiseguy: Life in a Mafia Family, which he wrote in 1985.

Although it tells how both of them turned from friends into enemies, the title actually refers to a club popular among several mob bosses at that time. It is scheduled for a release on March 21, 2025, after a couple of delays last year where the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike played a role in it too.

The Alto Knights is about Vito Genovese and Frank Costello

The Alto Knight's tagline says it all.

"The most dangerous enemy is an old friend."

Frank Costello and Vito Genovese were partners in crime, involved in robberies, extortion, narcotics, and more, alongside their associates, including Tommy "Three-Finger Brown" Lucchese, Meyer Lansky, and Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel.

Charlie "Lucky" Luciano was the main man here, who was a Sicilian leader they were working with. He was later found guilty of running a prostitution ring and sent to prison. And this is when Frank Costello got a chance to run Luciano's business while Vito left for Italy to avoid charges of murder.

Genovese then returned and tried manipulating Luciano in his favor by offering some ideas so he could run everything. To his dismay, the Sicilian leader rejected everything Vito had put on the table and gave more power to Frank Costello and Willie Moretti, who was Frank's cousin.

According to The Alto Knights cast members listed on IMDb, none of them are seemingly playing these characters, so the story might be more narrowed down to Frank and Vito.

How did the conflict end?

We are likely to see Frank Costello's character retiring in The Alto Knights, as that is what happened in reality. As we already know, things got soured between these two; Vito actually tried to assassinate Frank by ordering a hit on him.

During the 1960s, when Frank Costello was one of the dominant figures in the mafia world, one of his allies left, and Genovese got a chance to terminate him. The iron was hot, and he just had to hit it. So he asked Vincent Gigante (Cosmo Jarvis in The Alto Knights) to do the job.

However, he failed, as Costello was wounded and lived. Interestingly, things didn't escalate from Frank's end, but instead he gave up the power and retired. Genovese remained in power until he was imprisoned on the count of selling heroin. He was sentenced to be kept in Atlanta Federal Penitentiary and later died in the United States Medical Center for Federal Prisoners.

While Costello had seemingly given up his power, he still remained a prominent figure and was often cited as 'The Prime Minister of the Underworld.' Given the events, we are likely to see De Niro playing one cool-headed and one hotheaded man in The Alto Knights.