We Own the Night (2007)

Both sides think they own the night

The film is covering well known territory, and it doesn't bring totally new aspects into it. Just a normal "New York cops versus gangsters" flick, imagine a cross of the Departed and Eastern Promises.
We all know that in the 90s, Mr.Giuliani singlehandedly and famously cleaned up NYC (unless it really happened differently, eg via the mechanisms mentioned in Freakonomics). Before his magic touch saved the city, it appears that NY cops were the laughing stock of the streets. Gangsters were in control, it seems.
What we have here, set in 88, is a confrontation between a Russian drug ring and the cops, among whom the father and son team Duvall/Wahlberg is prominent. They have a prodigal son/brother (Phoenix), who happens to work as a night club manager for the Russians and has a Latina girl friend (Mendes). You see right away where this is leading, but then, no, you don't quite. The script succeeds in avoiding overdone predictability. With hindsight, no big surprise happens, but you never quite know how it will unfold.
In other words, if you like the genre, this is a first class product.
Some have given low grades here for the fact that it is not original. True, it isn't very. But I would rather watch a solid movie in a proven and interesting genre than an original bore in a new one.
July 19, 2008

Great Movie

I really love this movie. I would recommend this movie to Joaquin Phoenix or Mark Wahlberg fans. I like both actors very much and to see a movie with both actors was a great pleasure. May 30, 2008

Family ties and drug crime

Story about two brothers, one policemen and the other night club manager whose professional lives clash. While one is following the family tradition of being a policemen, the other is trying to break on his own. This is all good until it turns out that the owner of the night club, a Russian immigrant who is officially in fur business, decides to expand his drug business from Brooklyn to Manhattan. In an effort to secure market advantage and scare police away from his operations, he gives out orders to muscle the police officer who (unknown to him at the time) happens to be his night club manager's brother. And it is at that moment that story starts to unrevel. Loyalties get tested between friends, family members and in love relationships. Interesting film, well told, but pales in comparison to a movie like "Departed". Eva Mendes plays beautiful and seductive girlfriend, but I hope, for her acting future, that she can show more to the audience but the ability to handle hot intimate scenes. May 29, 2008

Fantastic!

This movie was fantastic all the way through! Starts off good, and never quits! Watch it! May 27, 2008

Sooooooo Slowwwwww

They must have passed out depressants to the cast when shooting this movie.
I wanted to jump into the scenes with Phoenix and jump start his heart so he could continue. I believe it was the directors job to get the timing right in this slow mo druggie versus cop movie and he failed miserably. May 19, 2008

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