On W List of Movie Reviews
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We Own the Night (2007)
Rate:
6
Viewed:
3/08, 2/25
3/08:
The slick-looking movie poster of We Own the Night influenced me to see it.
Afterwards, I've come away feeling pretty good. A huge sigh of relief is that it's old-school with no CGI crap.
This one has straightforward acting, old-fashioned storytelling, simple camerawork, and an in-depth plot.
I generally don't think much of Joaquin Phoenix's thespic abilities, but here, he may have turned a new leaf. As a
matter of fact, it's his original professional name: Leaf Phoenix. Robert Duvall as part of the cast is a bonus. Mark
Wahlberg gives a much better performance than The Departed. Eva Mendes isn't bad, too.
We Own the Night is a cross between Cop Land and
The Departed, so lots of credit go to James Gray for his
fantastic direction while keeping the traditional cinematic elements intact. Thinking of how the film can be improved,
shooting it in black and white might have been beneficial.
All in all, We Own the Night appears to be among the last of decent Hollywood pictures.
2/25:
We Own the Night hasn't aged well, earning a weak rating of '6' from me.
The biggest issue is unevenness. It takes a good forty minutes before the story gets anywhere.
By the time it does, the momentum doesn't last long, and it's back to the same slow buildup. In many ways, I feel
like director James Gray is obsessed in exploring Little Odessa again
because of the Russia mafia angle and the family stuff. How the car chase was done sucks; I couldn't see much.
There are some things that I don't understand. Why were Marat Buzhayev and his wife invited to
Deputy Chief Grusinsky's funeral? And why did Bobby bother showing up at El Caribe afterwards? That's when he could've
had himself killed just as easily. I knew that seeing Jumbo again was a bad idea the whole
time. Why did Bobby go to the middle of the field at the end? All he had to do was wait for Vadim to come out.
And no helicopter to sight him?
Joaquin Phoenix is okay, but I wondered how he got the scar on his upper lip which turns out that he was born with
a microform cleft. To continue working with him and James Gray from
The Yards, Mark Wahlberg
is no actor. Ditto for Eva Mendes who's more of eye candy than anything else. Robert Duvall is Robert Duvall.
All in all, ultimately too long, We Own the Night fails to make me care about the characters.