{"id":295,"date":"2007-10-12T22:44:14","date_gmt":"2007-10-13T02:44:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/?p=295"},"modified":"2009-09-09T19:45:37","modified_gmt":"2009-09-09T23:45:37","slug":"we-own-the-night-2007-movie-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/?p=295","title":{"rendered":"We Own the Night (2007) – Movie Review"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/p>\n
<\/div>\n

\"Robert

Robert Duvall tells it straight up to wayward son Joaquin Phoenix in "We Own the Night"<\/p><\/div>\n

Men in Blue<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/h1>\n

[xrr rating=4\/5]<\/p>\n

We Own the Night<\/em>. Starring Joaquin Phoenix, Mark Wahlberg, Eva Mendes, Robert Duvall, Alex Veadov, Dominic Colon, Danny Hoch, Oleg Taktarov, Moni Moshonov, Antoni Corone, Craig Walker, Tony Musante, Joe D\u2019Onofrio, Yelena Solovey, and Maggie Kiley. Music by Wojciech Kilar. Cinematography by Joaquin Baca-Asay.\u00a0 Production design by Ford Wheeler. Costume design by Michael Clancy. Edited by John Axelrad. Written and directed by James Gray. (Columbia Pictures\/2929\u00a0Productions, 2007, color, 117 minutes. MPAA Rating: R.)<\/strong><\/p>\n

As the opening title montage for We Own the Night <\/em>closes, the film cuts to a familiar nightclub scene that places the audience in the late-1970s New York disco-club scene. Debbie Harry\u2019s sultry voice blares \u201cHeart of Glass\u201d through the paper-thin walls as two obviously doped-up lovers are deep in flagrante delicto.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>This wholly gratuitous scene, verging on pornography, is to let viewers know that<\/p>\n

picturesque actress Eva Mendes won\u2019t be wasted in this film. Which is just as well, because Mendes is as useful to this urban tale as a box of chocolates is to a diabetic. That, and a subtitle telling you it\u2019s 1988 (about a decade too late for the Studio 54 sound), are the movie\u2019s main flaws.<\/p>\n

Mercifully, having provided the requisite number of lurid shots to fill the movie\u2019s preview reel, director James Gray soon dispenses with the gratuity. After vampish Mendes slinks into a room of partying cokeheads, she is permitted to switch gears and just be Joaquin Phoenix\u2019s supportive love interest. The movie then becomes visually cohesive and compelling.<\/p>\n

This gritty, moving cop drama is the saga of a Queens police family headed by patriarch Albert Grusinsky (Robert Duvall). Son Joseph (Mark Wahlberg) followed in dad\u2019s footsteps, becoming precinct captain. Brother Bobby Green (Joaquin Phoenix) is the family\u2019s black sheep: He doesn\u2019t want anything to do with the family business, or even its name (he takes his mother\u2019s maiden name).\u00a0<\/p>\n

Bobby runs the glitzy El Caribe nightclub in Brooklyn and thrives on a steady diet of coke, pot, and late-night partying. He feels more at home with the nightclub\u2019s Russian owner, furrier Marat Buzhayev (Moni Moshonov), and his family. Grandfatherly, yet still sporting a boychick\u2019s face, Buzhayev looks at Bobby as fondly as he would his own son.<\/p>\n

Despite the estrangement from his actual family, Bobby pays his obligatory respects when his father invites him to a police social function. There, Albert and Joseph take him aside for a private meeting with a couple of their police colleagues. They want Bobby to cooperate with a narcotics investigation of his club, to be their eyes and ears. While they haven\u2019t found any dirt on club owner Buzhayev, they suspect that his nephew, Vadim\u2014a treacherous, drug-dealing rodent (Alex Veadov, in a strong performance)\u2014is moving huge amounts of the white stuff through the El Caribe.<\/p>\n

Like so many celluloid tales of siblings on opposite sides of the law, good son Joseph\u2019s disapproval of brother Bobby\u2019s dismissive attitude toward the undercover gig echoes their father\u2019s open disgust.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can smell it on you,\u201d Albert rebukes his wayward scion, referring to much more than just the stench of pot smoke on his clothes. \u201cSooner or later, you\u2019re going to be with us, or you\u2019re going to be with the drug dealers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bobby\u2019s forced to choose sides after the police hit the club in a surprise raid. In retaliation, a would-be assassin shoots Joseph, who narrowly avoids death. Later the same night, Bobby finds himself sitting across from Vadim in a diner booth. The drug peddler brags to Bobby about the hit, confiding that the police chief is next on the list to be bumped off.<\/p>\n

In a matter-of-fact montage, the director conveys what the audience knows but Vadim doesn\u2019t:<\/em> that Bobby is the wounded cop\u2019s brother and the chief\u2019s son. The suspense in this scene becomes unbearable as Bobby listens silently to the man; only the subtlest flicker of emotion crosses his poker face, and although only a second passes before the camera cuts to Vadim, it seems like an eternity.<\/p>\n

Although this isn\u2019t the end of the line, it\u2019s where I step off this narrative train. Let\u2019s just say that, through a series of twists and turns, the forces of good and evil collide with devastating results. What\u2019s so refreshing is that those forces are clearly drawn, without the cloying postmodern tendency toward moral equivalence that\u2019s rampant in today\u2019s culture.<\/p>\n

For over three decades, the template for the cop film genre has been Serpico. <\/em>Sidney Lumet\u2019s biopic honoring a lone officer\u2019s undying integrity in the face of institutional corruption has spawned dozens of imitators. In these, the audience waits for the predictable other shoe to drop, as a rogue cop in the precinct is slowly unmasked as the real villain.<\/p>\n

We Own the Night <\/em>dares to run counter to that clich\u00e9d cynicism. Here, the men in blue are the good guys, and the drug-pushing thugs are the bad guys. Gray\u2019s serious-as-a-heart-attack tale portrays police as the \u201cthin blue line\u201d that keeps civil society from backsliding into anarchy. Although many critics have compared this film to Martin Scorsese\u2019s comeback picture The Departed <\/em>(which, on balance, was a pro-cop film), <\/em>it reminded me more of two of David Mamet\u2019s best, Homicide<\/em> and The Untouchables, <\/em>in depicting its crime-fighting heroes as honorable and valorous.<\/p>\n

We Own the Night<\/em> also features a refreshingly old-fashioned narrative structure. The storytelling is straightforward, with no preposterous plot machinations. Blissfully missing as well are jumbled and provocative \u201cset pieces.\u201d So, when the film arrives at its climactic sequence\u2014a car chase along a crowded Queens underpass\u2014you feel its impact more intensely. Through cinematographer Joaquin Baca-Asay\u2019s adroit camerawork and John Axelrad\u2019s precise cutting, not a frame is wasted. They simultaneously convey a logical, rapid-fire sequence of events and the murky, disorienting sense of trying to navigate an out-of-control squad car through a torrential downpour. How they reconcile these contradictory visual motifs is nothing short of genius. I experienced the scene as though I were a passenger along for the horrific ride.<\/p>\n

No pummeling of the ears with hyper-realistic surround sound, either. Composer Wojciech Kilar\u2019s score hits all the right notes of solemnity and suspense. His eerie theme for vicious drug kingpin Vadim is a single note played on the organ, mezzo piano<\/em>, <\/em>a musical reference to Alfred Hitchcock\u2019s 1936 spy thriller Secret Agent.<\/em><\/p>\n

Because of this evocative cinematic approach, neither camera nor actors overwhelm. Robert Duvall is the movie\u2019s moral anchor, delivering the same incontestable authority he\u2019s brought to so many roles over the decades, such as the character Lieutenant Colonel \u201cBull\u201d Meechum in The Great Santini.<\/em> When Duvall says it, it sounds as if \u201cit came from the burning bush.\u201d I enjoyed Mark Wahlberg\u2019s solid turn as Joseph. I don\u2019t think he\u2019s a great actor\u2014he basically plays himself in most of his movies\u2014but he plays himself with conviction.<\/em> Character actors Antoni Corone and Tony Musante are equally effective as Albert\u2019s veteran police lieutenants.<\/p>\n

However, it\u2019s Joaquin Phoenix who owns the screen, with a multi-faceted, explosive performance that reminded me a lot of a young Marlon Brando. The course of the picture follows him from rebellious prodigal son, to reluctant police informant, and eventually to resolute NYPD officer-recruit. Superficially, Phoenix\u2019s character seems impelled toward this transformation by destiny, not unlike Al Pacino\u2019s Michael Corleone in The Godfather.<\/em> Yet, Gray wrote him to symbolize the power of free will. His brother admits to a bit of envy when Bobby makes the difficult moral choice of joining the force. \u201cI didn\u2019t have a lot of faith in myself,\u201d Joseph confesses. \u201cI just did what Pop wanted me to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

We Own the Night<\/em> is an emotionally taxing though ultimately inspiring picture. Some critics might call it \u201cformulaic,\u201d but its presentation of cops as good guys is a formula rarely seen on the silver screen these days. In fact, I\u2019d love to see Hollywood apply this formula of honoring our men in blue\u2014and their mission\u2014<\/em>to our men in green.<\/p>\n

But I ain\u2019t holding my breath.<\/p>\n

Robert L. Jones is a photojournalist living and working in Minnesota. His work has appeared in\u00a0<\/span>Black & White Magazine<\/span><\/span>,\u00a0<\/span>Entrepreneur<\/span><\/span>,\u00a0<\/span>Hoy! New York<\/span><\/span>, the New York\u00a0<\/span>Post<\/span><\/span>,\u00a0<\/span><\/em>RCA Victor\u00a0<\/span>(Japan)<\/span><\/em>,\u00a0<\/span>Scene in San Antonio<\/span><\/span>,\u00a0<\/span>Spirit Magazine<\/span><\/span>\u00a0(Canada),\u00a0<\/span>Top Producer<\/span><\/span>,\u00a0 and the Trenton\u00a0<\/span>Times<\/span><\/span>. Mr. Jones is a past entertainment editor of\u00a0<\/span>The New Individualist<\/span><\/span>.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Men in Blue [xrr rating=4\/5] We Own the Night. Starring Joaquin Phoenix, Mark Wahlberg, Eva Mendes, Robert Duvall, Alex Veadov, Dominic Colon, Danny Hoch, Oleg Taktarov, Moni Moshonov, Antoni Corone, Craig Walker, Tony Musante, Joe D\u2019Onofrio, Yelena Solovey, and Maggie Kiley. Music by Wojciech Kilar. Cinematography by Joaquin Baca-Asay.\u00a0 Production design by Ford Wheeler. Costume […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65,35,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cop-dramas","category-dramas","category-mreview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=295"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":299,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295\/revisions\/299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}