The 2025 crime drama film, The Alto Knights, brings to the screen the infamous feud between Frank Costello and Vito Genovese that once made New Yorkers fear that the fight between the two mob bosses might spill into their lives as well. Shot from the perspective of Frank Costello, the leader of the Luciano crime family, the film takes us through the depths of this feud and the multiple incidents that felt like they would be the watershed moment in the rivalry. However, The Alto Knights merely tells the story of these warring crime bosses, without any cinematic or creative flair, and is not too entertaining either.
Spoiler Alert
What is the film about?
The Alto Knights begins on a usual day in 1957 in New York City, where a businessman, officially a gambler by profession, Frank Costello, walks into his apartment building and walks up the elevator after greeting the doorman a good evening. As he waits for the elevator to come down, someone calls out his first name, suggesting that he is personally acquainted with the man, and just as Frank turns around, he is shot in the head. The perpetrator manages to get away, while Frank falls down on the floor clutching his bloodied head and has to be rushed to the hospital in an ambulance. This incident immediately creates ripples in the media and in society, as its reports in the daily newspaper shock everyone. The reason for this shock is actually quite clear, for despite his official designations and on-paper professions, Frank Costello is a crime boss and is the head of the notorious Luciano crime family that controls a major portion of the criminal activities in New York City.
What is even more concerning for the citizens, perhaps, is that Frank actually survives the incident, which was clearly an assassination attempt on his life. When the doctors at the hospital check on him and his wife, Bobbie, rushes to the place after hearing the news, it is revealed that Frank had been extremely lucky, for the bullet had somehow missed the designated target and grazed past one side of his head. This meant that the man only had to deal with a scar on the side of his head and some regular headaches for a few days, which are far less concerning results compared to what had actually been the intention of the shooter.
In fact, Frank has no doubts about who had ordered the hit on him, and perhaps even knows the man who had fired the bullet. However, when the police detectives come to question him at the hospital, he tells them that he didn’t manage to see the face of the attacker, even though that seems extremely unlikely, since Frank had turned around when he was called and then shot. He lies at this time, and also later on too, as he maintained in court that he did not see who had shot him, firstly to give no chance to the police to investigate his life and professional involvements, for it is evident that the hit had been ordered by some rival mob boss. But more importantly, Frank also knows that his assassination had been ordered by his former best friend and associate, Vito Genovese, and therefore he does not want the law to get involved. Instead, Frank Costello decides to execute his feud with Vito on a personal level, perhaps hoping to avoid being enemies for life.
How had Frank and Vito become the two most powerful men in New York?
As the story in The Alto Knights is presented in the form of an old Frank Costello looking back at his life and narrating it, he takes us to his childhood very early into the film, right when the visuals show him lying in front of the elevator with a bloodied head. Frank Costello, or Francesco Castiglia, as he was originally named, was born in Calabria, Italy, and moved to New York with his mother and elder brother in order to live with his father, who had already moved to America for work earlier. Although quite intelligent and fairly successful in bringing home good grades, young Frank was never interested in following the usual life routine and instead dreamt of making it big at any cost. Therefore, he quit school around the ninth grade and joined hands with his best friend and companion, Vito, who also shared the same ambitions as him.
Vito Genovese was also born in Italy, in Naples, and moved to New York with his family, much like many Italians at the time. As he and Frank met and became close friends, they started hanging around at the Alto Knights Social Club in Little Italy, New York, where they also got involved with criminal gangs, the members of which used to frequent the club. Eventually, they started working with Lucky Luciano, who established the governing body of the American Mafia, known as the Commission. Lucky, who is now considered the father of the American Mafia, had brought together multiple Mafia families to form a committee and take decisions together after discussion. Under his wing, Frank and Vito naturally gained a lot of experience about how to run a crime syndicate and keep the authorities in check.
Eventually, Lucky Luciano got into trouble with the law and was sent to prison in 1937, and Vito was promoted to his position as the top boss of the mafia organization. But this power structure was also set to change, as Vito got involved in a double homicide case and came onto the radar of the police in New York. He had to flee the country in order to escape the law, and thus Vito left everything in the hands of Frank, whom he trusted like a brother. Thus, Frank Costello became the boss of the Luciano crime family, which made him the most powerful man in the city at the time, since the mob controlled every aspect of society and business. Although Vito remained missing from the scene for many years, as WWII kept him away from America for far longer than he had intended, he did eventually return and immediately wanted to take back control. However, the arrangements between the families had already been made in this post-WWII world, and they all backed Frank as their leader, meaning he would retain the position.
What was the reason for the feud between Frank and Vito?
Frank and Vito actually had differing opinions about life and the world from a very young age, which Frank admits in his narration, and this difference had become evident when they were both young men already making a name for themselves in the mafia world. Frank knew that, although he was committing crimes like looting, racketeering, and even murder at this time, he would have to stop these illegal acts soon in order to strike out for a higher station in life. The murders and extortion were only a means for him to reach a certain stature, which would allow him to venture out into other businesses and professions. Thus, he wanted to start a restaurant, or a similar business, together with Vito, as that would help them transition to the right side of the law, but his best friend declined the offer.
Vito was always more about action and had the mentality of a henchman who wanted to be involved in criminal activities forever in his life. Unlike Frank, Vito enjoyed being a feared and respected mobster who held illegal power and influence in his hands, and so he felt almost insulted when the idea of running a restaurant together was proposed by his friend. This difference always remained between the two men, and while Vito was away running from the law, Frank capitalized on the Prohibition laws and built an empire with his bootlegging business. He also settled down with the love of his life, Bobbie, while Vito returned and had a failed matrimonial life with Anna, the owner of a restaurant in New York. But the real differences between the old friends started to take shape after Vito’s return to the United States.
While Vito accepted the fact that he would not be handed over the crime empire he had been running before leaving, he did not get the sort of overwhelming welcome from Frank that he was expecting. This difference kept growing with regard to business relations and the friends they made, and nothing could be solved even when the two old friends sat down for a chat after Vito’s return. When Vito’s divorce case with Anna eventually led to Frank getting dragged in for questioning by the law as well, unlike the other mobsters at the time, Frank refused to hide behind his Fifth Amendment rights. This further made Vito believe that his old friend was a conniving man planning to further consolidate power in his own hands. Out of pure jealousy and frustration, Vito then ordered the hit on Frank, and the matter escalated when the assassination attempt failed.
It can be argued that the two men did not really have a feud between them, as Frank was never interested in hurting Vito or taking revenge against him for the failed assassination attempt. Frank truly felt settled in life, and he was looking to retire and move away with his wife as well. However, Vito kept fearing and anticipating that Frank was plotting a plan of revenge, and he clearly was imagining how he would have reacted in case an old friend had tried to kill him. This is what made Vito even more paranoid, and he believed that there was now a feud between him and Frank, because of which he kept planning more attacks against Frank and his men.
Eventually, Frank decided to step away from the crime syndicate and did not want to head the mafia family anymore. He chose a younger associate in his gang, Albert Anastasia, to be his successor. However, the paranoid Vito now ordered a hit on Albert and had him killed mercilessly while he was getting a shave at the local barber shop. This act of extreme violence finally announced to the world that Vito now wanted to act against Frank, and it also finally made the latter realize that he could not reason with Vito and should therefore bring an end to the feud himself.
How did Frank bring an end to his feud with Vito?
Frank chose not to go the violent way in ending his feud with Vito, which made it all the more apparent that he genuinely did not want a hand in any criminal activities anymore. But he had to make a major sacrifice in the process, as Frank had to let go of the criminal empire that he had built, since involving the authorities was the only way forward. Thus, he called for a meeting among all the mob bosses and family heads under the American Mafia, and Vito was naturally invited as well. Vito saw this meeting with the top bosses as a great opportunity to present himself as the next leader of the Luciano family and convince them to support his rise to power. On the day of the meeting, he proudly pitched himself to the people whose support he needed for his plan to replace Frank once and for all.
However, Frank Castillo had already put together a significant plan to end all rivalries and feuds among the mafia families. He had the local police anonymously notified about such a meeting of the mob bosses taking place at Apalachin in New York State, which resulted in a few police patrol cars being sent that way. Although the host of the party, Joe Barbara, is able to inform his guests about the police surveillance when his son spots a police officer, the mobsters have to literally scamper off in their cars down the main highway. Unbeknownst to them, a few of the patrol cars were already waiting for them on the highway, and each of the mobsters, including Vito, was stopped and questioned, with their car number plates noted down as well.
Most importantly, Frank stayed away from the meeting by intentionally delaying their time of arrival, first by stopping for a coffee break despite having had coffee only some time earlier, and then stopping to buy apples for the host of the party. Although his driver kept insisting that they should hurry, Frank calmed him down, saying that there would be no problem since he had called for the meet. In reality, no direct connection was found between Frank and the anonymous tips that the police had received on that day, and so The Alto Knights also does not show his direct involvement in it. However, it is definitely implied that Frank had the anonymous calls made, which is why he delayed his own arrival at the party and escaped the law. This truly brought an end to his one-sided feud with Vito, as the latter was soon arrested by the police.
What Finally Happened To Vito And Frank?
The fiasco at the Apalachin meeting proved the existence of the American Mafia to the authorities, and they started prosecuting each of the mobsters. Vito Genovese was arrested and sentenced to 16 years, and all the other gangsters linked to the mafia were also soon put behind bars, resulting in the dismantling of the Commission. Vito passed away while imprisoned, in 1969, of heart failure.
In The Alto Knights’ ending, Vito left his business to Vincent, the same man he had given the responsibility of killing Frank earlier, and Vincent managed to avoid legal trouble for about ten years by pretending to be mentally ill. But Vincent also was ultimately prosecuted and sent to prison, and he died behind the bars. Meanwhile, Frank managed to hide all connections between himself and the mafia, and no trace of him having placed the anonymous calls on the day of the Apalachin meeting could be found either. Although he did face some jail time because of tax evasion charges, Frank managed to retire to a peaceful life and spent fruitful years with his wife, pursuing a newfound passion in gardening. Frank Costello died of natural causes at the age of 82, in February of 1973, bringing almost an end to the powerful American Mafia.
