We Own the Night - Incredible (not in a good way) [some spoilers]
We Own the Night opens with a montage of black and white stills of NYPD officers in action. The realistic photographs detail various (apparently real) crime scenes involving drug runners and their criminal behaviourisms. The sequence promises something that the film fails to deliver – credibility. We might expect something like Serpico or The French Connection with a gritty realistic investigation into police procedure and the underworld. Instead, we get an operatic melodrama of two brothers at a crossroads, ruthless Russian drug-lords, and a storyline that has one of the main players change from villain to hero quicker than you can say “absurd character transformation”.
At the conclusion of this opening montage the action shifts to the fictional narrative. The title card alerts the viewer to the time and the place—Brooklyn, 1988—but it is a superfluous detail because the pumping Blondie soundtrack and the representation of excess more than adequately set the scene. Bobby Green (Joaquin Phoenix) is the manager of an opulent New York City nightclub where anything goes. Bobby is initially presented in his office in an apparently drug-fuelled sexual dalliance with his gorgeous Latino girlfriend, Amada (Eva Mendes). Meanwhile, patrons in the club dance wildly and openly use illicit drugs. Here director James Foley exhibits a brilliant eye for detail and these early scenes skilfully represent the appeal of an excessive lifestyle.
When Bobby leaves his post on an errand we soon realise he is harbouring a deep secret that creates the central conflict in his professional and social world. He attends a benefit for his brother Joseph Grusinksky (Mark Wahlberg), a New York policeman. Joseph has just been promoted to a position investigating the kind of drug culture that permeates clubs like the one Bobby manages. This is the central conceit of Foley’s film – two brothers on the opposite side of the law. We Own the Night is a tale of morality interrogating righteousness and vice and whether the virtue of the former outweighs the appeal of the latter. To complicate matters even more, the brothers’ father Burt Grusinsky (Robert Duvall) just happens to be the Chief of Police. If this premise sounds a tad convoluted, well, you ain’t heard nothin’ yet!
Shortly after Joseph leads a raid on Bobby’s nightclub he is shot by a hooded assailant. It is presumed to be a revenge attack orchestrated by Bobby’s Russian mobster associates and it understandably prompts Bobby into a change of heart. However, the immediacy and completeness of this transformation is too swift to be credible. It is not long before Bobby has agreed to infiltrate the main villain’s drug-den in a bid to capture his brother’s attackers. That he can so effortlessly penetrate Vadim Nezhinski’s lair while wearing a wire challenges common sense. Then, when it all goes so horribly wrong with Bobby being carted off to hospital in an ambulance, both brothers have suffered horrendous physical injury before we’ve even made it to the film’s midpoint. Foley has shot himself in the foot by jam-packing the We Own the Night’s early scenes with so much drama that he leaves himself no where to go.
While Bobby suffers physically, it is Amada who takes on the emotional burden that accompanies his change of heart. We Own the Night barely hints at her suffering, only offering subtle asides of her moping in the corners of the frame. She is compelled to alter her life because of Bobby’s decision to help the police investigation, transforming their lifestyle from endless partying to house-bound exile. Foley misses an opportunity to explore this area with more depth and greater compassion, keeping it in the margins of both the narrative and the screen. Rather than focus on this low-key narrative track, the director instead chooses to go bigger and bolder to the film’s ultimate detriment.
Foley has a keen eye for visual detail and he can film an exciting action sequence, but he is not as adept at writing a strong story. Too much of the dialogue is merely expositional with characters vocalising their motives and moves as if the audience is too daft to read between the lines. Additionally, there is a fundamental lack of credibility throughout, with events becoming increasingly absurd in the film’s latter stages. That Bobby can go from drug-using nightclub manager to “honorary” policeman (yes, you heard me correctly) in the space of a matter of months sufficiently highlights the film’s believability flaws. Then there's the rather superficial representation of Joseph’s post-attack wounds. Despite being shot in the face at close range with a high-powered handgun, Wahlberg only sports a tiny prosthetic circular scar on his cheek as evidence of his injuries. In fact, the only other evidence of the gruesome attack is a change in his demeanour that manifests itself as a bad temper!
With events becoming so ludicrous the film is left with no place to go in the final act except into the familiar area of revenge fantasy. Credibility is strained to breaking point when Bobby is enlisted by the police as a key player in the ambush to capture the newly escaped Nezhinski. Not only is Bobby present at the scene, he also carries a police-issue shotgun. When the ambush sends the Russian mobsters scuttling in all directions, typically it is Bobby who goes after Nezhinski alone. Here the film is simply “creating” a resolution that pits hero versus villain merely to satisfy the revenge-fantasy conclusion. This ending is not only silly, it is border-line fascist. We Own the Night commenced with a promising fraternal melodrama, but unfortunately it ends as an implausible Dirty Harry rip-off.
At the conclusion of this opening montage the action shifts to the fictional narrative. The title card alerts the viewer to the time and the place—Brooklyn, 1988—but it is a superfluous detail because the pumping Blondie soundtrack and the representation of excess more than adequately set the scene. Bobby Green (Joaquin Phoenix) is the manager of an opulent New York City nightclub where anything goes. Bobby is initially presented in his office in an apparently drug-fuelled sexual dalliance with his gorgeous Latino girlfriend, Amada (Eva Mendes). Meanwhile, patrons in the club dance wildly and openly use illicit drugs. Here director James Foley exhibits a brilliant eye for detail and these early scenes skilfully represent the appeal of an excessive lifestyle.
Mendes playing the hot Latina girlfriend
When Bobby leaves his post on an errand we soon realise he is harbouring a deep secret that creates the central conflict in his professional and social world. He attends a benefit for his brother Joseph Grusinksky (Mark Wahlberg), a New York policeman. Joseph has just been promoted to a position investigating the kind of drug culture that permeates clubs like the one Bobby manages. This is the central conceit of Foley’s film – two brothers on the opposite side of the law. We Own the Night is a tale of morality interrogating righteousness and vice and whether the virtue of the former outweighs the appeal of the latter. To complicate matters even more, the brothers’ father Burt Grusinsky (Robert Duvall) just happens to be the Chief of Police. If this premise sounds a tad convoluted, well, you ain’t heard nothin’ yet!
Shortly after Joseph leads a raid on Bobby’s nightclub he is shot by a hooded assailant. It is presumed to be a revenge attack orchestrated by Bobby’s Russian mobster associates and it understandably prompts Bobby into a change of heart. However, the immediacy and completeness of this transformation is too swift to be credible. It is not long before Bobby has agreed to infiltrate the main villain’s drug-den in a bid to capture his brother’s attackers. That he can so effortlessly penetrate Vadim Nezhinski’s lair while wearing a wire challenges common sense. Then, when it all goes so horribly wrong with Bobby being carted off to hospital in an ambulance, both brothers have suffered horrendous physical injury before we’ve even made it to the film’s midpoint. Foley has shot himself in the foot by jam-packing the We Own the Night’s early scenes with so much drama that he leaves himself no where to go.
While Bobby suffers physically, it is Amada who takes on the emotional burden that accompanies his change of heart. We Own the Night barely hints at her suffering, only offering subtle asides of her moping in the corners of the frame. She is compelled to alter her life because of Bobby’s decision to help the police investigation, transforming their lifestyle from endless partying to house-bound exile. Foley misses an opportunity to explore this area with more depth and greater compassion, keeping it in the margins of both the narrative and the screen. Rather than focus on this low-key narrative track, the director instead chooses to go bigger and bolder to the film’s ultimate detriment.
Foley has a keen eye for visual detail and he can film an exciting action sequence, but he is not as adept at writing a strong story. Too much of the dialogue is merely expositional with characters vocalising their motives and moves as if the audience is too daft to read between the lines. Additionally, there is a fundamental lack of credibility throughout, with events becoming increasingly absurd in the film’s latter stages. That Bobby can go from drug-using nightclub manager to “honorary” policeman (yes, you heard me correctly) in the space of a matter of months sufficiently highlights the film’s believability flaws. Then there's the rather superficial representation of Joseph’s post-attack wounds. Despite being shot in the face at close range with a high-powered handgun, Wahlberg only sports a tiny prosthetic circular scar on his cheek as evidence of his injuries. In fact, the only other evidence of the gruesome attack is a change in his demeanour that manifests itself as a bad temper!
"Like a Phoenix rising from Arizona!"
With events becoming so ludicrous the film is left with no place to go in the final act except into the familiar area of revenge fantasy. Credibility is strained to breaking point when Bobby is enlisted by the police as a key player in the ambush to capture the newly escaped Nezhinski. Not only is Bobby present at the scene, he also carries a police-issue shotgun. When the ambush sends the Russian mobsters scuttling in all directions, typically it is Bobby who goes after Nezhinski alone. Here the film is simply “creating” a resolution that pits hero versus villain merely to satisfy the revenge-fantasy conclusion. This ending is not only silly, it is border-line fascist. We Own the Night commenced with a promising fraternal melodrama, but unfortunately it ends as an implausible Dirty Harry rip-off.
