'We Own the Night' is a perfectly acceptable crime drama pitting Russian mobsters against the Brooklyn police force circa the late eighties.
The film features fine performances from Joaquin Phoenix, Mark Wahlberg and Robert Duvall, and a handful of scenes with a flawless urgent energy but director James Gray certainly treads familiar ground here - particularly coming on the heels of Scorsese's Best Picture winner 'The Departed'.
Writer-director James Gray is a festival favorite due to two previous films also dealing with Russian mobsters, 1994's 'Little Odessa' and 2000's 'The Yards' (also starring Phoenix and Wahlberg) which found some accolades at Venice and Cannes. The director certainly takes his time between films despite obviously deft writing and directing techniques that might have resulted in commercial success sooner.
Nevertheless, 'We Own the Night' was his most commercial success yet with a strong marketing push from Sony back in October despite my opinion that it's never quite as good as his two predecessors. Perhaps, I might have responded better had the film not had the misfortune to follow Scorsese's similar 'The Departed' and Cronenberg's visceral punch in the gut 'Eastern Promises' - certainly the defining Russian mobster pic of the year.
No, James Gray employs an almost antiquated script that carves out characters that wouldn't be out of place in an old WB 30s gangster pic. Joaquin Phoenix plays Bobby Green, a faux moniker he adapted as the manager of a thriving Brooklyn nightclub. Enjoying his stature that allows him to weave through the smoking crowds every night with a semblance of power, abuse an eclectic mix of drugs, and hang out with his best bud Jumbo (Danny Hoch) and his loyal, loving Puerto Rican girlfriend Amada (Eva Mendes), life is generally good.
Trusted by the nightclub's owner, a Russian immigrant Marat Bujayev (Moni Moshonov), a seemingly kind older gentleman who enjoys spending time with his grandkids and supports the nightclub from his fur trade venture, Bobby even has talks with Marat to fund a Manhattan club that he would manage.
Bobby "Green's" choice of occupation, however, proves displeasing to his Polish-American father and brother. His father is Burt Grusinsky (Robert Duvall) is the district police chief, and his brother Joseph (Mark Wahlberg) followed in his father's footsteps to become one of the most respected cops in the business - hence Bobby's name change. Despite Bobby's commitment to stay out of the more seedy drug-dealing elements that he might find himself in, his life would still be threatened if particular nightclub patrons knew who his family was.
The inevitable clash between his lifestyle and his family comes to a head when Joseph orders a crackdown on Marat's nephew Vadim (Alex Veadov), a sinister drug dealer attempting to corner the district's market at the same time that Vadim approaches Bobby to "test" his stuff and help spread his "reputation".
With Vadim released for lack of evidence, an immediate consequence is taken. Joseph is shot in front of his home, execution style. Though Joseph survives, this action hits Bobby too close to home and he agrees to become an informer and do whatever it takes to bring down Vadim, a man who unwittingly discloses to Bobby that his family, key members of the police, is being targeted for assassination.
With the setup of the age-old informer device, even a merely competent handling of these scenes will result in a fair amount of tension and Gray doesn't disappoint there. There's no doubt the viewer gets pulled in during the midsection of the film where familial emotions and solid action set-pieces take precedence over the more implausible scenarios and narrative loopholes that command the film when it eases into the climax.
A particularly standout sequence is a commanding car chase where Bobby trails his father to a safe-house only to run into the Russian mob who has found out his location. Taking place in a wicked downpour of rain and filmed with a hand-held immediacy and a variety of close-up reaction shots, I'll concede that it's one of the more exciting sequences of its kind in a while. It is a shame then that the script unravels going into and during the last act.
Inconsistencies, contrivances and strange character developments all plague the rushed last act that seems more content to embrace an expected, lackluster shoot-out climax than carry on the once intriguing characters with any logic.
Not a complete washout of what came before but a nevertheless puzzling end to an otherwise competently staged film. Performances are solid with Phoenix providing the necessary dimensions, Wahlberg playing a slightly lesser machismo note than his character in 'The Departed' and Duvall always capable as the grizzled old patriarch of sorts. Eva Mendes also gets a nice role that proves more than just the requisite love interest.
The film is presented in a 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer with a decent amount of special features provided. James Gray provides an informative commentary track and three featurettes complement the commentary.
'Tension: Creating We Own the Night' is your fifteen minute standard making of, 'Police Action: Filming Cops, Cars and Chaos' is a self-explanatory 10-minutes followed by 'A Moment in Crime: Creating Late 80's Brooklyn'. A healthy supply of trailers finishes off the disc.
There's more to recommend in 'We Own the Night' than not with a reliable set-up of family strife and informant shenanigans along with a handful of successful action sequences and capable direction and acting but rest assured, it's not without it's disappointing distractions.
If your more tolerant of late in the game contrivances, you may be more pleased as a whole, but for me, it's an acceptable crime flick that scores a just above passing grade.
We Own the Night is now available at Amazon . It is available for pre-order at AmazonUK for a March 24 release. Visit the DVD database for more information.
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