WISE GUYS: Robert De Niro Will Play a Dual Role in Upcoming Barry Levinson Crime Movie

Robert De Niro To Re-Team with Barry Levinson for Mob Drama

Legendary screen actor Robert De Niro is set to return to movies about organized crime in director Barry Levinson‘s upcoming, Wise Guys.

The great Robert De Niro will be appearing in a dual role in a new mob movie to be directed by Barry Levinson. The forthcoming dramatic film is titled Wise Guys. This film will feature a story centered on crime bosses Vito Genovese and Frank Costello. A Goodfellas scribe, Nicholas Pileggi, will write the movie and one of the film’s producers will be Irwin Winkler. Coming off one of the best mob movies of all time, 2019’s The Irishman, De Niro will seemingly be playing both Genovese and Costello in Levinson’s picture.

Levinson directed De Niro as Father Bobby in the 1996 dramatic film, Sleepers, which was based on Lorenzo Carcaterra’s controversial book. In that movie, the priest played by De Niro helped get a couple of good guys turned street thugs off from charges of murdering a guard who abused them when they were kids. It was one of the most star-studded films of all-time with actors in it like Brad Pitt, Jason Patric, Minnie Driver, Dustin Hoffman and Kevin Bacon.

De Niro re-teamed with Levinson (and Dustin Hoffman) just a year later in Wag the Dog which also featured the great Anne Heche. De Niro played a spin doctor who helped take focus off the President of the United States’ sex scandal by helping create a fake war. De Niro later teamed with Levinson on two other projects which were a bit less prestigious but nevertheless noteworthy: What Just Happened and “The Wizard of Lies.”

Filmmaker Barry Levinson is known for great, prestigious films like Rain Man and Bugsy but he also directed some notorious flops like Jimmy Hollywood and, before that, the Robin Williams disappointment Toys. Levinson also directed Robin Williams in one of his best performances in the phenomenal movie, Good Morning, Vietnam. De Niro, on the other hand, has never truly faltered in a career full of great performances ranging back to his first-rate turns in movies like Taxi Driver and Goodfellas. He recently appeared in dramas Joker and The Irishman and,  before them, won mainstream audiences over with his work in comedies like Meet the Parents and Silver Linings Playbook.

The collaboration between De Niro and Levinson for Wise Guys should make for a dream team yet again. So far, their first two outings together have been their best but Wise Guys sounds like a last hurrah that could be a career highlight for both talents. To see De Niro in a dual role under Levinson’s skillful direction is sure to be a conversation piece that could lead to a conversation as to which role De Niro could secure an award nomination for!

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