We Own the Night (2007)
We Own the Night opens on a somber collection of photographs that would be right at home in the opening credits of a 1970s Sidney Lumet film. From there, writer-director James Gray cuts, jarringly, to a very deliberate shot of Bobby Green (Joaquin Phoenix) walking down the hallway of a loft he has tucked away in the down town club he manages. At the end of that hallway lies a living room, and in that living room lies the luscious Amada (Eva Mendes). Bobby steals a bit of carnal respite before being called back to the front of the club to settle the sort of dispute that is obviously very usual-usual for him. We catch tantalizing glimpses of the sexy girls, the bartenders, and the clearly very dangerous clientele that frequents the place. Blondie’s “Heart of Glass” tells us it’s the 1980s, and a subtitle reinforces that just in case we missed it.
A few moments later, Bobby and Amada make their way to a celebration being held on the other side of town in honor of Capt. Joseph Grusinsky (Mark Wahlberg) who’s, I think, receiving a promotion. Presiding over the ceremony is Deputy Chief Albert Grusinsky (Robert Duvall), Joseph’s father and boss. The Grusinskys spot Bobby and quickly pull him away for a moment. It turns out that Bobby is Joseph’s brother and the long lost member of the Grusinsky family. The Grusinskys need Bobby’s help, a frequenter of the club is one of the deadliest drug runners in Brooklyn. Bobby, drunk, high on weed and vague self-loathing, tells his family to take a hike. Bobby feels a closer familial connection to Marat Buzhayev (Moni Moshonov) an older man who runs the club Bobby manages. The old man always happens to be related to the drug runner that Joseph and Albert hope to corner.
For about forty-five minutes, We Own the Night is tasty pulp, as breathless and obsessive as it sounds, and refreshingly old-fashioned. In a time of countless, ceaseless shaky-cam “excitement”, it’s nice to see a filmmaker who takes his time and actually builds a little steam before blowing the top off. That old fashion that I speak of also extends to the film’s look: lush and beautiful, the Brooklyn streets shot with the kind of painter’s eye that the David Cronenberg of Eastern Promises could appreciate.
We Own the Night comes down with a bad case of the “importants” about half-way through though, and the vitality seeps right out of the picture. The film primes you for a conflict between Bobby and Joseph, and between Bobby’s real and surrogate family, only to resolve that in a matter of minutes. The film primes you for one of Phoenix’s more interesting performances in years (where has the raw live-wire from Parenthood and To Die For gone?) only to revert to another one of his noble numbers that wins lots of nominations and little else.
Joaquin Phoenix is one of the strongest actors of his generation, but lately he’s been suffering from the same ennui tinged discombobulation that plagued Johnny Depp in the early 1990s before Ed Wood showed up. Bobby starts out a sexy, dangerous, kind of sluggish presence only to fall right in line when the you know what hits the fan. He’s ideal, upright, and dull as a damn fence post. Gray’s script is more consistent with the Duvall and Wahlberg roles, they’re dull from the very beginning.
I’m not going to dissuade you from seeing We Own the Night once, the film works when Gray isn’t smothering it with well meaning profundity. Gray turns out to be a virtuoso with violence, his gunplay is alive and terrifying in a way that the characters never quite manage. The best sequence, a claustrophobic highway ambush in the rain shot almost entirely from inside a character’s car, has the possibility of becoming classic, and proves that Gray has the stuff of a great filmmaker, when he isn’t going out of his way to prove he’s a great filmmaker.
★★½
February 19th, 2008 at 7:09 pm
Agree that it falters when the conflict transfers from within the family to between the good guys and the bad guys. Agree that the car chase is the most memorable part. I also remember the drug lab scene (when Joaquin is going in undercover) being pretty intense, too. I’ll catch it again on FX someday, if at all.
February 19th, 2008 at 10:12 pm
Too bad this one doesn’t appear to have worked out (I still haven’t seen it so I only skimmed your review).
If you’re right (a friend of mine agreed), it’s a sorry waste of a great cast.
February 20th, 2008 at 10:53 am
I was so interested in this one, especially when everyone was talking about how Joaquin was going to dominate the Oscars in 2007 with Reservation Road and this film. It looks average to below average, and I skipped seeing it, even though I had planned to just see it with no reservations. Maybe, just maybe, I’ll catch it on DVD sometime.
February 20th, 2008 at 11:17 am
I think you should check it out once Nick, with expectation in check, Gray has promise (though I haven’t seen The Yards or Little Odessa) and that highway scene really is something.
February 23rd, 2008 at 12:37 am
There were too many films out at the time this one was in cinemas for me to see it. With the tepid-to-bad reviews and the generic feel the trailer and ads gave off, coupled with people whose opinions I respected weighing in pretty strongly against it, I skipped it, too.
I’ve yet to see The Yards or Little Oddessa, either.
Nevertheless, a good review, Chuck. Joaquin Phoenix looked good in it, but it’s too bad to hear the Wahlberg and Duvall characters were so bland from the get-go (as they appeared to be).
February 23rd, 2008 at 11:04 am
I haven’t seen The Yards or Little Odessa either. The Yards is sitting on my counter though, so I’ll probably see that soon. I’ve heard that both are better than Night, for what that is worth.