The Alto Knights research

 The Alto Knights (2025) 

The opening credits: The opening credits start with the title of the movie spread out the whole length of the screen. The font is very blocky, and it is white with a black background. This part is very simple, and I feel like it does not fit the vibe of a mafia movie; the font is very modern compared to mafia being an older type of genre. Then it slowly disappears and changes to a smaller size of the same font and includes lowercase instead of all uppercases saying “Based on true events”. Then it fades out, and the movie begins with a simple text saying, “New York 1957”. 

The movie has received some recognition for their trailer with their motion graphics and title graphics, but it has not received any awards. However, I chose to research this movie because I want to see how the mafia genre has adapted across decades since benchmark movies like The Godfather and The Goodfellas. When watching the opening scene of The Alto Knights, I will be able to compare it to the opening scenes I have seen from older mafia movies and see the newer conventions used to implement into my opening scene.  

Production and Distribution: The Alto Knights was produced by companies Winkler Films and Warner Bros. Pictures. Irwin Winkler was the main producer of the film, and the companies used an estimated budget of between 45-50 million dollars. One of the notable names who starred in the film was Robert De Niro who helped to attract many fans from his other mafia movies like The Goodfellas and The Godfather series. He also played two important characters in the movie. They published not only a trailer months before release but as it came closer to releasing, they also published a full movie preview on top of it. The producers also published a movie poster headlining Robert De Niro’s name along with the movie title. 

 

The mise en scene is very typical of a mafia movie but it looks very good. The characters are all wearing suits and are dressed very nice, along with them all being white or Italian it mimics a traditional mafia movie. One of the characters is smoking and another one has a small pistol that he shoots at the character we are following at the beginning. The lighting is very dim and yellow, mimicking the dark and cruel world inside the mafia, is it also set in New York which is where the Mafia started up because of all the migration there was during the first world war. I am going to think about using the lighting they used in their movie because it puts a different mood when watching the movie than just regular lighting.  

The movie begins with a wide shot of a man who I'm assuming is the mafia boss getting out of a cab by himself and walking towards the hotel, establishing characters and setting. A medium shot is used from inside the hotel to watch him go through the doors and walk towards the elevator. This shot stays as he pushes the button for the elevator. It switches to an insert shot of the elevator going down all the floors from the penthouse in room 30, so it will take a while. We see a canted shot of him off a mirror and then it switches to a cowboy shot of him, and we see panic across his face. And then it switches to an over the shoulder from his shoulder, and then he gets shot. Then in the next 10 seconds, about 30 different cuts are used showing his panic, his blood, the shooter, the hotel clerk, and the elevator still going down and then it ends when the elevator finally opens. We see a close up of him laying they're not moving as they stay on this shot for about 5 seconds. Then they use flashbacks from earlier that night to show how the killing was orchestrated down to him travelling alone and that a cook at his event he was attending called the mob to tell them to kill him. 

The first 40 seconds use very normal editing techniques, helping to create a calm tone, and it lets the audiences guard down for what is about to happen and how unexpected the editing creates it. Then in a very quick fashion extremely fast cuts are used during the gunshots to show how unexpected the character was, and he had no clue he was going to be assassinated that night and it shows how quickly life can end and how much panic goes on during the time you're dying. For the rest of the opening scene, it covers parallel editing between the attempted killing and the main character who got shot, showing what he was doing while they were planning to kill him later that night as the opening scene ends zooming in the murderer.  

The producers used very good sound techniques in the opening scene. The first 40 seconds are simple just using sound mixing and sound principle of car horns honking and doors opening and closing. But when he gets shot, it uses ears ringing which is a non-diegetic sound, eerie music, and overall, very interesting sounds that match the situation, when the hotel clerk is talking to him to say he's calling an ambulance, his voice is very soft, and it fades away. Then when they go back to the flashback of earlier that night and he is talking about what he did wrong, it sounds like he is talking like he is alive and telling this to someone, so it leaves you wondering did he actually die or was it a dream.