Last year, “The Departed” thrilled moviegoers. It offered an intriguing plot, coupled with stellar acting and directing. Upon seeing previews for “We Own the Night,” one could get the impression that this film will offer the same kind of experience. The movie seems like it will be an epic crime drama, similar to “The Departed,” with a cat and mouse chase coupled with a fast moving plot. Unfortunately, this does not occur. “We Own the Night” is a great disappointment. The plot moves very slowly and never really gets the audience’s adrenaline going. Scenes go by without anything really happening or the plot moving forward. While the acting of Joaquin Phoenix, Mark Wahlberg and Robert Duvall is phenomenal, they are given nothing to work with. What results is a shoddy cop drama that, instead of hooking an audience, lulls them to sleep. It wants to be an epic on the same level as “Goodfellas” or “The Departed,” but never really makes it. Instead, this film is more like “The Black Dahlia,” something that tries to be so much more than it actually is.
“We Own the Night” takes place in the year 1988 during the escalation of New York’s drug trade. The film revolves around two brothers, Bobby Green (Phoenix) and Joseph Grusinsky (Wahlberg), the sons of legendary New York City Chief of Police Burt Grusinsky (Duvall). Bobby has turned his back on the family business and has immersed himself in a life of crime. The manager of the popular El Caribe, a legendary Russian-owned nightclub in Brooklyn’s Brighton Beach, he has changed his name and concealed his connection to a long line of distinguished New York City police officers. Joseph, however, is pursuing the Russian gangsters who own the club. After a late-night raid, Joseph is shot by the gangsters connected to Bobby. Bobby decides that blood is thicker than water and becomes an undercover officer for the New York City police, thus turning his back on the life he knew.
The plot seems engaging, but fails to meet expectations. In fact, nothing about this film’s story is even remotely interesting. The premise is good, but the execution is poor. To add insult to injury, it seems as though writer-director James Gray has made the same movie three times. All of his films, which include “Little Odessa” and “The Yards,” all center on male family members, fathers and brothers, and are set among the corrupt world of New York cops and gagsters in immigrant communities. Gray may not necessarily be a bad filmmaker, but an unimaginative one. Why would he waste the time making movies like these when directors like Scorsese and Coppolla use similar themes and make their films so much better? Perhaps it is because that is what sells.
Another problem with “We Own the Night” is that, with the exception of Eva Mendes, who is awful as usual, there are no female leads. Gray has chosen to focus solely on the male characters and uses female characters only to stand as a catalyst to main characters’ downfalls. Mendes’ character is also incredibly under-developed and lacks any sort of compassion. She is cold and callous. However, this is how Gray presents all the characters in this film, as uncompassionate towards one another.
The problem with under-development is something that plagues all of the characters. Take, for example, the main character played by Phoenix. The audience knows he has distanced himself from his family, but they never know why. Does he hate cops or simply resent his family? How far back does his sibling rivalry with Joseph span? None of these questions are answered. As a result, a character that should have been fleshed out, like those in the aforementioned crime films, is one-dimensional and is no more interesting than the characters in “The Black Dahlia.”
It is really a shame that “We Own the Night” was as poorly made as it was because it had the potential to be great. It stars three high-quality actors in Phoenix, Wahlberg and Duvall, all of which have been nominated for Oscars. Their talents are wasted in this film. While the plot is incredibly mundane, the acting is stellar. Phoenix takes over the screen during his scenes. He and Wahlberg have an amazing chemistry that makes their sibling rivalry seem that much more believable. Duvall offers another stellar performance to add to his already stacked résumé. He is perfect as the ridged police chief, but shows a compassionate side when dealing with his two sons. Gray should stick to casting because it seems that he is out of his league when it comes to writing and directing.
In the end, “We Own the Night” is a generic, bland, uninspired cop film that adds nothing to the genre. It is too bad that this film was as disappointing as it was because it had so much potential.
Chris Bashore is a fourth-year student majoring in political science. He can be reached at CB588901@wcupa.edu.