We Own the Night takes its title from the motto of the narcotics police squad from mid 1980s in New York.  The film is a grand narrative about a son's fall from grace and eventual rise in respect to his father and brother.

Drug addled Bobby Green (Joaquin Phoenix) manages a night club in Queens New York.  His police-star brother Lt. Joseph Grusinsky (Mark Wahlberg) targets the bar up as a potential network for the Russian Mafia in New York to deal their drugs.  Bobby has his own drug habits that he shares with his girlfriend Amada (Eva Mendes) and ignores much of the blatant drug activity that takes place in the club until brother Grusinsky raids the place in order to get to drug lord Vadim Mezshinski (Alex Veadov) a ruthless Russian drug dealer.  Police father Deputy Chief Albert 'Bert' Grusinsky (Robert Duvall) castigates Bobby for his lack of integrity but Bobby laughs it off until brother Joe is shot by masked hit men.  Bobby agrees to go under cover to get information on a large stash of drugs that Vadim is setting up to sell and the police manage to capture the criminal and bring him to trial.  Vadim escapes and has his hit men attack Bobby and his father forcing Bobby to galvanize his efforts by joining the police force and working with Joe to track down Vadim and all the silent partners of the Russian drug group that are responsible for the drug trade in Queens.

This character study is one of the better cop dramas managing to collapse the "Sturm and Angst" of an entire season of NYPD Blue into a crisp and trimmed 117 minutes.  The arc of growth of Joaquin Phoenix's black sheep son/brother Bobby Green is a perfect example of the actors subtle detailed and layered expression of someone living in the shadow of a father and brother who have made an outstanding mark in a chosen field.  It is the humanity Phoenix brings to his role that makes it stand apart from others about siblings who appear to be rebels against the establishment because they do not follow in the family business. 

That Bobby is a night-club manager who drinks and does drugs is not the main issue with the story and neither is the large cache of cocaine that the Russians are bringing into New York, but rather that Bobby is not on the Police force like his brother and Father- this is the breach of etiquette that is the main contentious force at work in the film and what ostensibly fuels the motivation of virtually all the characters involved.  It is this grand narrative that posits We Own the Night in the catalogue of ethical dramas that essentially are preaching family loyalty over individuality- the world of the film is either evil and free-thinking or staid and family-based and ultimately authoritarian.

Thankfully the script allows us an inside look at the gentle family life of the Russian king pin Marat Buzhayev, played with little actual acting by Moni Moshonov.  The role is emblematic of what so many of these "crime" drama attempt to do by showing the human side of even the worst of characters- Moshonov plays his role primarily by allowing the camera to show his face looking benevolently at his family and at Bobby as he takes business meetings in his dining room.  The tone is clearly designed to copy what Francis Ford Coppola did in The Godfather- all the visual cues are present with only the real substance of the narrative eliminated.  The film is clearly too short- writer/ director James Gray could have given us an additional 90 minutes on the basis of the very complicated Russian attitude toward business in New York and compared it with more of why Wahlberg's Joseph and father played by Robert Duvall have chosen their paths in life.

Phoenix builds his character from the inside utilizing every emotional area that the character is subject to in order to rationalize what Bobby does and why he is motivated to do it.  As brother Joe rests  in a hospital bed after being shot, the tear that runs down Bobby's face is a piece of real life that Phoenix brings into his performance- a difficult thing to do particularly for male actors.  Phoenix has that great ugly/beautiful quality that so many successful actors have, and he has acting skills to boot but it would be great if he had some real actors surrounding him in key scenes.  Robert Duvall is as close to an equal as you can get but Mark Wahlberg and Eva Mendes clearly are eye candy, cast for their demographic pull to insure that people are going to watch the movie for other reason than acting talent. 

The featurette included with the film has interviews with James Gray, Robert Duvall, Joequin Phoenix, Wahlberg, and Mendes about making the movie and there are interesting things all have to say about the movie especially how Phoenix worked to get under Robert Duvall's skin in order to create a substantive relationship that could be translated onto the screen.

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Good for a Rainy Day
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older