Subscribers Only Content Area

Home

New Movies

All Movies

New Videos

All Videos

DVD

Search

(About Our Ads) "WE OWN THE NIGHT" (2007) (Joaquin Phoenix, Mark Wahlberg) (R) If you've come from our parental review of this film and wish to return to it, simply click on your browser's BACK button. Otherwise, use the following link to read our complete Parental Review of this film. QUICK TAKE: Drama: A Brooklyn nightclub manager must decide what to do when Russian gangsters target his brother and father, who are both NYPD cops. PLOT: It's Brooklyn, 1988, and Bobby Green (JOAQUIN PHOENIX) is the manager of the Russian-owned El Caribe nightclub in Brooklyn. With the help of his girlfriend, Amada Juarez (EVA MENDES), and the work of Jumbo Falsetti (DANNY HOCH), Bobby has turned the place into a hotspot popular with the locals as well as various criminals, such as Russian drug dealer Vadim Nezhinski (ALEX VEADOV). Little do anything of them realize, however, that Bobby uses his mother's last name so that no one knows he's related to NYPD cops. His dad, Burt Grusinsky (ROBERT DUVALL), is the deputy chief of police, while his brother, Joseph (MARK WAHLBERG), has just been assigned to head up the force's narcotics division. When one of Joseph's first raids targets Bobby's club, that not only creates additional tension between the siblings who obviously don't see eye to eye, but it also angers the Russian mob, resulting in a hit on Joseph that leaves him hospitalized. Bobby is conflicted, but when he hears that Vadim is also targeting his father, the family rebel must choose what to do, all while Amada worries about the potential dangerous repercussions of his decision. OUR TAKE: 4 out of 10 Although most every parent encourages their children to follow their own paths and be who and what they want to be, some secretly long for their offspring to follow in their footsteps. Regardless of whether that's white collar (lawyers, doctors, etc.) or blue collar (cops, firefighters, et al), there's a certain pride among parents knowing that their kid wants to be like their "old man" (or mom, as has now also become the case). Of course, then there are the kids who take the polar opposite route in their desire to break away from such wishes and/or expectations, or simply to rebel by being different. While not always the case, that predominantly involves adult kids turning bad or at least living on the edge, unlike their straight, narrow, and/or upstanding citizen parent(s). Both types of kids appear in the curiously titled "We Own the Night." In this throwback to gritty cop dramas and thrillers from the 1970s, Mark Wahlberg plays the good son who's followed his father -- played by Robert Duvall -- in terms of protecting and serving the community as one of New York's finest of 1988. His sibling (embodied by Joaquin Phoenix), on the other hand, runs a notorious nightclub, does coke, and has a girlfriend in the form of Eva Mendes. Although not directly involved in crime, Bobby Green (he goes by his mother's maiden name so that his cop family association remains veiled) turns a blind eye to the criminal element that frequents his place, including a Russian drug dealer (Alex Veadov). Given that his brother Joseph is now heading up the anti-narcotics division, and neither he nor his father look highly upon Bobby's chosen career path, familial sparks, as well as many bullets, are bound to fly. Both do and then some in this reunion of Phoenix and Wahlberg with director James Gray who last all worked together in the similarly themed and looking "The Yards" from back in 2000. From the drab color palette to the obligatory chase sequence and tough guy cop characters, the film is presumably a bit of homage to those cop pics from the era of disco, bad clothes, and a mostly technology free world. While the good cop/bad cop, father/son dynamics are certainly nothing new, there is potential in the story, simply due to the setup that Gray has concocted (he also penned the screenplay). Yet, perhaps because we've seen this sort of story and look so many times before (although, to be fair, not that often of recent), and due to so much implausibility and improbability, the film lacks the snack, crackle and pop to energize the viewer, and instead often feels like soggy cinematic cereal from a bygone era. Due to his character's inherent nature as well as the various story constructs that occur, Phoenix gets to work with a far meatier part than Wahlberg (whose character also disappears for a while due to a certain plot catalyst) and thus comes off as far more interesting. Despite the familiarity of the character type and the associated flamboyance, the actor manages to make the persona his own, even with a rather contrived plot development that occurs in the third act. Spoiler Alert ahead... That switcheroo (where he's turned into a cop following another familial tragedy, due to having enough intimate connections with the bad guys to earn him a badge rather than just an informant's card) just isn't believable. And that holds true for enough other parts of the film (mostly involving bad and/or stupid cop judgment, including but not limited to transporting criminals and/or those needing protection, as well as capturing the bad guys) that one's enjoyment and acceptance of what occurs is seriously diminished. A few simple script tweaks here and there could have fixed most if not all of those issues, but even that wouldn't have overcome the been there, seen that aura that permeates the film. I'm not sure exactly what could have been done in that regard, but it's too apparent that the needed spark to bring life to this old-feeling cop genre entry is MIA. Not horrible but certainly suffering from a fair number of problems, "We Own the Night" isn't different, polished, or good enough to stand out from the crowd, regardless of what era in which it exists or tries to emulate. The film rates as a 4 out of 10. Reviewed September 25, 2007 / Posted October 12, 2007