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We Own the Night

Review By: Michael Dance
michaelmdance@gmail.com

We Own the Night is a solid if unspectacular cops-and-criminals movie with some good character work and a few dynamite scenes. The genre was basically perfected by last year's The Departed, one of the rare cases in which my favorite movie of the year actually won the Best Picture Oscar. We Own the Night features a similar ad campaign and another supporting performance by Mark Wahlberg, and if it feels more muted and less energetic, that seems to be director James Gray's intention.

I'm of the opinion that the screenplay, more than anything, will make or break a movie -- I'm usually not one to give a movie a passing grade on directorial style or good acting if the plot is in shambles. The screenplay here (also by Gray) is one of the weakest points of the film; the main character, Joaquin Phoenix's Bobby, has a transformation that I didn't fully buy, while many specific plot details seem naggingly implausible. But some of the individual scenes are just so good, and are directed by Gray so well, I can't help but want to support the film despite its flaws.

The story is set in 1988 New York City (the film's title is taken from the NYPD slogan of that time). Bobby Green manages El Caribe, a Brighton Beach nightclub owned by a kindly old Russian man who has all but adopted Bobby. The Russian seems to be on the up and up, but his son Vadim is a drug dealer who operates out of the club. Bobby doesn't care. He'd rather ignore the escalating tensions between the dealers and the cops and live with his girlfriend Amada (Eva Mendes) in happy obliviousness.

He can't live that life forever, of course; eventually, he has to pick a side. This is particularly tricky because his father (Robert Duvall) and brother (Mark Wahlberg) are both cops. They're starting to crack down on the club, and since Bobby is so tight with the Russians, maybe he can help them by going undercover. Bobby wants nothing to do with it, but the decision is helped along by the Russians' tendency to carry out hits on the cops.

How in the world has Bobby managed to hide his family connection to two of the most prominent police officers of the area? The movie helpfully explains that he goes by a different last name, but he willingly sees his father and brother in public, and he's lived in the area his whole life.