We Own The Night
Directed by James Gray
Starring Mark Wahlberg, Joaquin Phoenix, Robert Duvall
Rated R

We Own The Night: Brooklyn Darkness

What are you doing? Nice college boy. Doesn’t wanna get mixed up in the family business. You think this is a battle field where you shoot someone a mile away? No, you get a 45′ shoot them up close and bada bing blood all over your nice ivy league suit. You’re taking this awfully personal. Tom this is business and this kid’s taking this very personal. — Sonny Corleone, The Godfather

James Gray has made only three films in thirteen years. Like John Dahl, he has a mastery and firm understanding of the crime drama. We Own The Night may not be in the same league as Little Odessa or The Yards, but give it time to sink in. I was not blown away by We Own The Night. Seven years ago, I felt the same way about The Yards, but it grew on me over the years. I have a feeling the same will be true with We Own The Night. The first thing that stands out in this film is the cinematography. If I didn’t know any better, I would have sworn this film was shot by Gordon Willis, the veteran cinematographer of the Godfather films, The Parallax View, All The President’s Men, and many other classics. The film’s cinematographer, Joaquin Baca-Asay, creates a vivid world of varying degrees of darkness — one cannot help but think of certain scenes from The Godfather. The film may take place in the Brooklyn of the late Eighties, but it has a definite Seventies-style darkness to it. It is very refreshing. Wojcech Kilar‘s haunting and brooding score only heightens the dark moods. His music works very well here as it did in Roman Polanski’s The Ninth Gate and Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula.

We Own The Night is a very straightforward crime drama. This is not a bad thing, but the film does take its time getting into gear. The film is a slow-burning firecracker, but when it explodes, it never comes up for air. James Gray understands this genre very well — the family and its relationship to crime.

At its heart, Little Odessa is about a dysfunctional family in Brighton Beach’s Russian immigrant community. The Yards is about family connections and a grand treatise on corruption and in that movie Mark Wahlberg and Joaquin Phoenix played best friends, almost brothers, on opposite sides of the tracks. In We Own The Night, they play brothers on opposite sides of the law. At first, the film feels like a retread of The Yards, not only with its two leading actors, but the plot also feels somewhat familiar. In The Yards, Wahlberg’s Leo Handler is an ex-con drawn back into a world of crime by his best friend, Phoenix’s Willie Guiterrez. In the new film, Wahlberg’s Joseph Grusinsky is the good cop brother who followed in the dedicated father’s footsteps, while Phoenix’s Bobby Green took a different path. The father, Burt Grusinsky, is played by veteran actor, Robert Duvall. Burt is the chief of police and is very proud of Joseph for the path he has taken. Bobby is another story. He went his own way. He is the club manager of El Caribe in Brooklyn during the 1980s. He has shady associates; his connections with these associates will come into direct conflict with his cop brother and father. The Russian mafia is running drugs out of the club. Joseph and Burt want Bob to spy on the clientele. Bob will have to make a decision on which side of the law he wants to be. By taking his mother’s maiden name, no one in the club world knows he is related to a family of cops. It is an enormous risk to take. He must decide where his loyalties lie — with his family or the criminal underworld.

We Own The Night belongs to Joaquin Phoenix. He owns the film. Sadly, Wahlberg and Duvall are on the sidelines; this film is about Bobby Green. Wahlberg did excellent work in The Departed and Shooter, but he does not have much to do this time. Duvall, like James Caan before him in The Yards, gives his role a level of respectability. When The Yards came out, it was criticized for being a Godfather wannabe. The same could be said for We Own The Night and the depiction of Bobby Green. The visuals aside, Bobby Green reminds me a lot of Al Pacino’s Michael Corleone in The Godfather. Michael went his own way. He enlisted in the Marines right after Pearl Harbor. He did not want anything to do with the family business. After the War, he goes to Dartmouth and he wants nothing to do with family business. When an attempt is made on his father’s life, everything changes. Things change for Bobby Green as well. He may be the black sheep of the family, but he loves his brother and father. After the notorious Russian drug dealer Vadim Nezhinski (Alex Veadov) is busted in El Caribe by the police, the Russians try to take out Joseph. He survives the hit. In the first half, it seems that Bobby’s loyalties are to the club lifestyle and all of the things that go with it. He and his girlfriend Amanda Juarez (Eva Mendes) have everything going for them. Bobby is in the good graces of a kindly Russian, Marat Buzhayev (Moni Moshonov). Marat likes what he is doing for them at the club. In the first half of the film, this is his family. How can Bobby be so naïve about Buzhayev? Before the hit, Bobby and Joseph are at each other throats, but this all changes once the two families cross paths. All bets are off, Bobby must pick a side. As in The Yards, I feel Phoenix carries the film. We Own The Night is Bobby’s story. He is the one who must make the choice and decide where he really belongs. Since To Die For, Joaquin Phoenix has made a name for himself. Most of the time, he brings so much to each part. Inventing The Abbotts, Clay Pigeons, Gladiator, The Yards, Buffalo Soldiers, Ladder 49, and his epic turn as Johnny Cash in Walk The Line show an incredible progression of range and authority. We Own The Night would not work without him. Robert Duvall and Mark Wahlberg are good in the film, but they serve more as plot points than fully realized characters. Phoenix is a powerhouse as Bobby Green. Bobby’s transition is going to be a make or break deal for audiences. It does require a certain suspension of disbelief.

While the film is not perfect, it does boast some great set pieces — one being an incredible, if brief, car chase in the rain. Some critics have suggested this is a homage to the iconic car chase in The French Connection, but I feel that is misleading. It just does not go on as long and it has a different level of intensity. Taking place in the pouring rain adds to the ominous atmosphere that permeates the film. The final shootout is a great sequence which will recall the ending of Little Odessa. Speaking of Little Odessa, it seems that James Gray has an affinity for these troubled souls trying to do the right thing for family. In the end, Phoenix’s Bobby Green and Wahlberg’s Leo Handler are variations on Tim Roth’s Joshua Shapira in Little Odessa. Both characters come very close to the moral complexities of Joshua, but he is in a class by himself. Gray told this story so well on his first time out. Although over time, I am sure We Own The Night, like The Yards will grow on me. Little Odessa is a hard act to follow. Think of it as The Departed lite.