Hollywood icon Robert De Niro to play dual role in Barry Levinson’s gangster drama Wise Guys

Legendary actor Robert De Niro is soon returning to his gangster roots in cinema as he signs on to star in Barry Levinson’s new crime drama. Titled Wise Guys, the upcoming gangster flick is centered on the dynamics between two of New York’s most notorious and popular Italian-American crime families, the Genovese and the Costello, who thrived in the mid-20th Century.

The film adaptation, reportedly, will focus on the crime bosses Vito Genovese and Frank Costello with De Niro slated to play both roles. Vito Genovese made an assassination attempt on Costello in the year 1957 and this could be a prominent plot point in the upcoming film adaptation.

The reports of Oscar-winning actor Robert De Niro ‘starring opposite himself’ has piqued the interests of the internet who are now keenly looking forward to this exciting rendition of the American gangster world. De Niro has attained global cult status for his poignant portrayal of the crime life in films like Godfather II, Raging Bull, Goodfellas, The Bronx Tale, and the more recent The Irishman (directed by his long-term collaborator Martin Scorsese). Wise Guys would be his maiden double role in a feature film.

Robert De Niro’s portrayal of Frank ‘The Irishman’ Sheeran in the 2019 film saw him encounter the revolutionary digital de-aging process. The visual effects procedure helped the 79-year-old actor (74 at the time of production) appear age-appropriate and believable through the nearly three-decade-spanning narrative.

Interestingly, Wise Guys' screenplay has been written by Nicolas Pileggi who authored the 1985 non-fiction book Wiseguy: Life in a Mafia Family which, eventually, became the source material for Scorsese’s seminal 1990 film Goodfellas. However, the story of the book or the 1990 film will bear no resemblance to Barry Levinson’s upcoming film, as confirmed by Deadline.

Academy award-winning filmmaker Barry Levinson is known for directing pictures such as Rain Man, Bugsy, Wag the Dog, and Sleepers (the latter two starring Robert De Niro). The duo has also worked on the 2008 satirical political-drama What Just Happened and the 2017 television film The Wizard of Lies.