![PK-01[WOTN-071_r] : Mark Wahlberg (left) as Joseph Grusinsky and Joaquin Phoenix (right) as Bobby Green in Columbia PicturesÕ/2929 ProductionsÕ We Own the Night, written and directed by James Gray.](/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/20071010__20071012_F8_AE12SCNIGHTp1.jpg?w=524 "20071010__20071012_F8_AE12SCNIGHT~p1.JPG")
If “We Own the Night” were a cop, it would resemble a uniformed lifer who’s walked his beat for so many years his arches have fallen.
Even so, as flat-footed as writer-director James Gray’s script often sounds, his cops-vs.-mob tale can be strangely mesmerizing.
Credit much of this magnetism to Joaquin Phoenix. As Bobby Green, the black sheep in a family of New York’s finest, the actor continues to ripen.
While brother Joseph and father Burt Grusinsky toe the thin blue line in a city overrun with gangs, Bobby manages a New York dance club.
Owned by Marat Bujayev, a grandfatherly Russian who made money in the fur trade, “Brooklyn’s best club” is a thump-and-grind cavern. In contrast,
Bujayev’s home is brightly lit, full of giggling grandkids and zaftig mamas.
Set in the late 1980s, “We Own the Night” earns its R rating fast. Bobby and lovely paramour Amanda (Eva Mendes) indulge each other on the office sofa. Louis (Danny Hoch), Bobby’s righthand man, bangs on the door. Call it seat-squirming interruptus.
Bobby has ambitions all the way to Manhattan. But his choice of trusted associate and his fondness for casual drug use suggests he’s not as ready as he imagines.
“We Own the Night” quickly sets up how old-school Bobby’s kin are. You’d have to scan long and hard, in a celebration in a church basement full of cops and their wives, to find signs that we haven’t been catapulted into the 1950s. When Bobby and Amanda arrive decked out in clubbing finery, the interracial couple has taken a giant step back in time.
Robert Duvall is Burt Grusinsky. A tough old bantam, he wears his disdain for Bobby’s choices stretched thin across his face. Mark Wahlberg plays eldest son Joseph, who has a chest full of medals and even less patience for his brother. It doesn’t take much time spent in their company to see why Bobby took his mother’s name, why he doesn’t want anyone he works with to know his roots.
They ask Bobby to help them nail – or at least stay out of the way while they nail – a Russian dealing drugs out of the club. Vadim is the owner’s nephew. A subsequent raid sets in motion the return of the prodigal son.
Joseph is shot in retaliation for the bust. And the lines between black and white are redrawn for Bobby.
“We Own the Night” is bent on making a fairly obvious point: The Russians aren’t the only ones who value family. Still, the scene in a boxing gym when Burt gets news of Joseph’s shooting is nearly worth the price of the ticket.
Gray has a firmer grasp on the visual rhythms of his atmospheric film than its dialogue, which can elicit snickers.
Throughout are glimpses of a more intriguing argument: Gangsters aren’t the only ones with rituals and unspoken codes. Cops can be made men, too. Witness the group of tight-lipped detectives gathered round Burt after Joseph’s been shot. They want to go to the mattresses.
Wahlberg and Duvall do get to deliver a couple of gems of cop wisdom.
Suiting up to mete out justice, Joseph reminds Bobby (in Wahlberg’s trademark whisper), “It’s better to be judged by 12 than carried by six.”
Lisa Kennedy: 303-954-1567 or
“We Own the Night” ** 1/2
R for strong violence, drug material, language, some sexual content and brief nudity. 1 hour, 58 minutes. Written and directed by James Gray; photography by Joaquin Baca-Asay; starring Joaquin Phoenix, Mark Wahlberg, Robert Duvall, Eva Mendes, Alex Veadov Opens today at area theaters.
