An average movie

To be honest, even though this movie had been rather poorly received, it did sound intriguing and, since it was available on Netflix, I thought I might as well check it out. If this movie would have been made in the 80’s or the 90’s, it might have been a sprawling and fascinating crime epic and there was definitely some potential. Unfortunately, I’m afraid it was still not really good after all though. At least, they didn’t go for some massive de-aging like they did in ‘The Irishman’ but having De Niro play both main characters still turned out to be a rather underwhelming gimmick. The choice was so bewildering as it seemed to be such a huge opportunity to have this acting legend face another legend like Al Pacino for example but, instead, it was turned into some rather misguided ego-trip. The only notable actor in the cast was Debra Messing who wasn’t given enough to do and she felt miscast since she was about 25 younger than De Niro. Concerning the rest of the movie, it was actually a fascinating true story but, again, it was rather poorly handled. For example, maybe half of the story was told by Costello when the most basic rule of filmmaking is ‘show, don’t tell’. It was also rather bewildering how much time they spent dealing with Vito Genovese’s trouble with his new wife. Seriously, who cares? The only decent moment was towards the end when Costello came to late to this mob meeting on purpose to make sure everybody would get caught except him, even though it was ruined by his chauffeur constantly asking what was going on. By the way, historically speaking, it was Vito Genovese who was responsible for this meeting, not Frank Costello as it was depicted in this movie. But even this turn of event still didn’t really work because I didn’t understand why Costello would do something like that since it would vastly destabilize so completely their organization. Eventually, I wish they started this story much earlier, when Costello and Genovese were just some kids in the streets of New York and how they became best friends and how they relationship evolved. Anyway, in spite of its flaws, it was still a decent watch and it was miles better than most of the garbage De Niro has been making lately but there is no doubt that it could or should have been so much better. 

6/10