The only thing that could have possibly saved this movie is by deciding to save it as a sequel to a much better movie.
Writer and director James Gray failed to impress me with “We Own the Night.” Gray had so much greatness at the tip of his fingers, and he didn’t seem to know quite what to do with it.
He had brilliant actors in Joaquin Phoenix, Robert Duvall and Mark Wahlberg. He had a cool setting in Brooklyn, New York in 1988. In addition, he had a workable storyline.
Phoenix and Wahlberg are brothers with very different lives and career goals. Joseph (Wahlberg) has chosen the same path as his father Burt (Duvall), who are both part of the NYPD.
Bobby (Phoenix), on the other hand, wants little to do with them. He goes as far as to change his last name from Grusinsky to Green, his mother’s maiden name.
Bobby is a well-known club manager of one of the most popular clubs in Brooklyn, where he and his girlfriend Amada (Eva Mendes) frequently hob knobbed with the club regulars.
Bobby and Amada join Burt and the rest of the NYPD to honor Joseph, who was just promoted to captain of an NYPD narcotics unit. Joseph and Burt approach Bobby about helping them find out information on dangerous Russian drug trafficker Vadim Nezhinski (Alex Veadov), who has been dealing from Bobby’s club.
Bobby declines to help his brother, who plans a raid at the club to try to catch Nezhinski. Nezhinski escapes arrest, but Bobby is brought in on cocaine possession. The brother’s relationship is pulled apart by Bobby’s arrest until Joseph is shot by one of Nezhinski’s guys. Bobby visits Joseph in the hospital and vows to get Nezhinski.
Gray’s writing and direction of “We Own the Night” was reminiscent of an excited child telling a story. He had a lot to say and didn’t want to leave anything out, so he didn’t even bother to take a breath in between to explain important parts of the story.
There was very little character build up, making it difficult to care about any of them, and there were too many different turns of events. Just when the audience is starting to get excited about something it’s like, “OK, I’m over that, let’s do something else now,” and then that exciting something is never revisited.
We don’t know why Bobby doesn’t have a strong relationship with his family; we don’t get to learn much about Amada, even though she is in just about every scene (I think she served more as a prop than a character).
A relationship between the club owner, who also happens to be Nezhinski’s uncle, and Bobby is started but never really develops until the end of the movie. We are introduced to Bobby’s friend and right-hand man Freddie (Dominic Colon) who sort of gets lost in the movie.
Once Bobby vows to help his family we don’t see the club anymore, even though he was an intricate part of it. After Joseph is shot, he has some issues getting back to work.
This movie was just all over the place, and it never quite gets anywhere.
One of the only good parts in this movie was Duvall’s very random one-liners, “You marry an ape, you don’t complain about the stench of bananas,” and my personal favorite, “When you piss in your pants, you can only stay warm for so long.”