Movie review in the Friday, Oct. 12 Oregonian....
"We Own the Night" opens with a terrific montage of vintage, black-and-white photographs of New York City policemen at work. During it, we learn that "We Own the Night" is the slogan found on a patch for the NYPD Street Crime unit.
It's a bold claim -- and one that's very much in doubt as the movie opens in 1988 Brooklyn. The NYPD is getting pounded by a family of ruthless Russian coke dealers who operate out of a nightclub managed by Bobby Green (Joaquin Phoenix).
But what the Russians don't know is that Bobby's real name is Bobby Grusinsky, and that he changed it to put a wedge between himself and his family, which he hates -- a family that includes a father (Robert Duvall) and a brother (Mark Wahlberg) who are high-ranking New York cops.
The setup plays like a mirror-image "Godfather": A stoned Bobby and his girlfriend (Eva Mendes) reluctantly attend family gatherings of straight-arrow cops led by Duvall. Bobby struggles with family loyalty after the Russians take out contracts on his dad and brother. And writer/director James Gray ("The Yards," "Little Odessa") drives the parallels home by shooting family and police gatherings in Coppola-esque long shots full of awesomely grim-faced old dudes (including Ed Koch, playing himself). There are even moments where the musical score seems to sample Nino Rota.
Unfortunately, for all its visual and actorly strength, "We Own the Night" ends up being one of those 75-percent-there kind of film experiences. It's not for lack of effort: Gray takes his time sketching the Russian and NYPD families in ways that feel authentic (he comes from a Russian-immigrant family, and it shows). And there are impressively staged set pieces -- especially one rain-soaked car chase filmed almost entirely from the point of view of the most frightened driver.
But the solemn words coming out of people's mouths never quite grab the viewer in a way that's vital or compelling.
"We Own the Night" has an epic shape and an epic look, but I can't remember a single thing the characters said. Bobby's family felt, to me, like chess pieces in a heavy-handed grand vision rather than furious, full-blooded human beings. (Wahlberg, in particular, seems to be doing a remix of his "Departed" character, only without the lacerating wit afforded by an Oscar-winning script.)
And a few moments -- especially one where a character strides bravely out of a smoking field holding a shotgun -- come off as self-consciously Handsome and Important, in that weird way you sometimes find in movies that work overtime to be Great American Films but don't quite catch the lightning bolt.
This is a perfectly serviceable thriller, mind. It's just not the New York family crime saga it clearly wants to be.
_____
C-plus; 117 minutes; rated R for strong violence, drug material, language, some sexual content and brief nudity.
'We Own the Night' (The Oregonian, Oct. 12, 2007)
Marky Mark has all of a sudden grown up. I miss his foolishness and hip hop tunes
Posted by: Yana | February 18, 2009 at 10:54 AM