Film in Focus

We Own the Night

Director: James Gray. Screenplay: James Gray. Cinematography: Joaquin Baca-Asay. Film editing: John Axelrad. Production design: Ford Wheeler. Music: Wojciech Kilar. Producers: Marc Butan, Joaquin Phoenix, Mark Wahlberg, Robert Duvall, Nick Wechsler. With: Joaquin Phoenix, Mark Wahlberg, Eva Mendes, Alex Veadov, Tony Musante, Danny Hoch, Oleg Taktarov, Dominic Colon, Elena Solovey, Moni Moshonov, Maggie Kiley, Paul Herman, Antoni Corone, Craig Walker, Claudia Lopez, Kate Condidorio, Edward Shkolnikov, Scott Nicholson, Robert Kirk, Fred Burrell, Luigi Scorcia, Doug Torres, Tony Guida, Patrick M. Walsh, Coati Mundi, Ed Koch. USA. Languages: English, Russian. 116 min. 2007.

By David Sterritt

The title comes from a police-department slogan, but the main character is Bobby, an upwardly mobile scofflaw (Joaquin Phoenix) who runs a New York nightclub where he hangs out with his girlfriend (Eva Mendes) while hosting a Russian drug kingpin (Alex Veadov) and other unsavory clients. The last thing he wants his felonious friends to find out is that he comes from a family of cops, with a high-ranking father (Robert Duvall) and a brother (Mark Wahlberg) who’s rising fast. These two confront Bobby and demand his cooperation in busting the kingpin. A couple of plot twists later he agrees, and therein lies the tale.

I see nothing positive in the current fashion for bashing people from Eastern Europe and environs. James Gray makes this something of a specialty, with “Little Odessa” among the three pictures he’s written and directed to date. David Cronenberg joined in with “Eastern Promises,” and like that disappointingly unimaginative melodrama, “We Own the Night” is basically an old-fashioned Mafia movie with different accents. The acting is consistently solid—not surprising, given the consistently solid cast—and there are some riveting set pieces, most notably a harrowing car chase in a driving rainstorm. But there are unexciting stretches too, and the finale is an inexcusably long indulgence in sentimental hooey, perhaps aimed at making us think the movie isn’t bashing Russians after all. Leave fifteen minutes before this and you’ll have a reasonably diverting time.