We Own the Night

Plot synopsis:
New York, November 1988: A new breed of narcotics has swept the great city, bringing with it a ferocious crime wave more terrifying than any in recent memory. Outmanned and outgunned by the new criminal order, the police find themselves burying one of their own at the rate of two a month. An all-out war rages, threatening to engulf guilty and innocent alike.Bobby Green (Joaquin Phoenix) is caught in the crossfire. Manager of a Russian nightclub in Brighton Beach owned by his mentor Marat Buzhayev (Moni Moshonov) and frequented by gangsters like Buzhayev's nephew Vadim Nezhinski (Alex Veadov), Bobby keeps his distance, not wanting to get involved. Despite his hedonistic, amoral lifestyle, he is committed to his girlfriend Amada (Eva Mendes) and has ambitions to open another club in Manhattan for Buzhayev.Bobby has a secret, however, which he guards closely. His brother is Police Captain Joseph Grusinsky (Mark Wahlberg), who has followed in the footsteps of their father, legendary Deputy Chief Bert Grusinsky (Robert Duvall). Bobby's already strained relationship with his father and brother is tested when Bert warns his son that this is a war, and he's going to have to choose a side.He can no longer remain neutral when his brother is badly wounded in an assassination attempt, and Bobby discovers his father could be next. Realizing they will only be safe when Nezhinski and his organization are destroyed, Bobby and Joseph join forces for an all-out assault. Together, they'll try to prove the NYPD's '80s rallying cry in the war on drugs: We Own the Night.--------------------------------------------------------------
Brooklyn, November 1988Bobby Green (Joaquin Phoenix) kisses and fondles his girlfriend Amada Juarez lying on a sofa. A knock on the door interrupts them to tell them there is a problem. Bobby leaves and goes out into a large bustling nightlcub, the El Caribe. Downstairs topless women dance on the bar and men are fighting, Bobby helps to quell the commotion. He tells his assistant Jumbo Falsetti he is going across the street to talk to the owner.There he is greeted warmly by an older Russian couple and their guests in a modest house. The older man, Marat Buzhayev hints at new plans and the women give homemade desserts to Bobby. He apologizes and leaves. Amada puts on an overcoat and tells some friends tonight she is meeting "the family".At a large Polish catholic church in Queens there is a special function for Capt. Joe Grusinsky. Bobby and Amada park nearby and share a joint before going in. In the crowded basement they make their way to a small group of senior police officers. Bobby greets his father, Deputy Chief Bert Grusinsky and brother Joe and the other two men. The Chief says they need to talk alone and the five men go upstairs to the pews. Joe announces he will be the head of a narcotics unit next week. The police suspect the owner of Bobby's nightclub is involved in smuggling drugs into the USA. Bobby refuses to believe it. Bert then talks to Bobby alone and reproaches him for his lifestyle, Puerto Rican girlfriend, and using his late mother's maiden name. Upset, Bobby and Amada leave, as Joe is welcomed to the stage and his new promotion.Later at Bobby's apartment Amada says she is ready to move in and gives Bobby a gold chain gift. Other guests are there and Jumbo arrives with recreational drugs, everyone parties hard.In the evening Bobby once again goes to the Buzhayev house. Marat this time talks about opening another nightclub, Bobby is enthusiastic and has some grand ideas. It is noted Marat's main business is fur importing.Back at the club Bobby and Jumbo chat, they notice Amada schmoozing with Vadim Nezhinski. Jumbo mentions a rumour that Vadim had someone's head cutoff. Suddenly a group of police led by Joe Grusinsky raid the bar frisking patrons for drugs. Joe taunts Vadim and joyfully tears up a large money roll. Bobby is treated roughly by the cops and one smears black ink over his face. Many people are arrested. Back at the station one of the arrested Russians cuts his own throat and bleeds out. In the morning Bert comes to take him out but a disheveled Bobby refuses the help and flips the older man the finger. Cleaned up, he goes to Joe's office. Joe apologizes but the two brothers end up fighting with harsh words.Joe parks his car in front of his house and struggles with a bag of groceries. A hooded man appears with a handgun pointed at Joe, then shoots him in the face.Bert is told while working out a boxing gym, he half faints.In the apartment, there's many people partying and a cash money poker game. The phone rings, Amada answers but it's for Bobby. It is Michael, one of the cops from the church telling Bobby Joe has been shot but is at Jamaica Hospital and still alive. Shocked, Bobby goes to the hospital right away. Bert once again verbally chews out Bobby.Joe will survive but will need several months hospitalization. Joe goes to see Amada at her mother's place.At a diner Vadim comes to Bobby and offers to show him his business operation. They think Bobby can help them spread their product through his social connections. Bobby is hesitant. Vadim scoffs at the local police then hints that they shot Joe and are prepared to get Bert next.Bobby goes to warn his father. The Chief thanks him but doesn't plan on any action, Bobby is dismissed. The next day, alone with Michael, Bobby offers to go undercover, if the cops can catch Vadim in possession of his big drug shipment everything will be OK. The cop gives Bobby a zippo lighter with a hidden mic, they arrange a safety word "feather".Bobby makes contact with Pavel to say he wants in. At the drug house Bobby watches the Russians cut and repack white powder. Vadim is suspicious and frisks Bobby. He wonders why there is both a lighter and matches. He takes the lighter apart and finds the bug just as Bobby manages to say the word "feather". Police storm the building shooting and in a wild gunfight Bobby jumps out of a 2nd storey window and lands in pain. Vadim is arrested but while sitting handcuffed in a squad car he hears Bert coming to the scene loudly expressing concern for his "son". Bert rides in the ambulance with the badly injured Bobby.Joe is released after four months in the hospital. At the welcome home party Bobby and Amada are greeted as family. Joe, Bert and Michael discuss Vadim as Bobby listens. Amada leaves to visit her mother, Bobby finds her there with Jumbo, they leave and Bobby warns her it was too risky.Joe goes to the jail to see Vadim but finds out he has been transferred to a hospital. Bert then goes to pick up Bobby and Amada as it turns out Vadim has escaped. They decide to change motels, Bert is to lead the way, Bobby and Amada in a car with a driver and a third car following. Shortly after leaving the Cue Motor Inn Bobby notices the trailing guard car is missing. Suddenly a car comes alongside, a gun is extended and Bobby's driver is shot and killed.Bobby takes control of the car as the assassins move ahead to attack Bert. A wild car chase through heavy traffic and rain, Bobby sees his father is outgunned and killed in front of him. The cars come to a crashing stop.Bobby and Amada are now under guard at the Kennedy Airport Sheraton. Joe and Bobby grieve for their father. There is an honour guard full colours funeral for Chief Grusinksy. Marat Buzhayev attends the funeral. One evening Amada notices Bobby is studying for the police entrance exam. She is furious he has decided on this dangerous career change without talking to her about it first. Exeunt Amada.Bobby is sworn in as a cop due to his "special knowledge" but he will have to go through the Academy later. He will be a plainclothes cop helping at the precinct. He goes to the El Caribe to talk to Jumbo. Jumbo doesn't know much about the drug trade but lets slip he knew about the Cue Motor Inn. Out back Bobby assaults Jumbo and gets more info, Jumbo had told Buzhayev about the motel and then reveals the Russian will be up to something on Tuesday.At a cop war council they plan how to get Buzhayev and Vadim. Bobby remembers Buzhayev takes his grandkids horse riding every Tuesday, Joe approves a raid at the stables. Later Joe gives Bobby their father's revolver.At a derelict site by the water the Russian gangsters meet, observed by armed cops hiding in the weeds. Inside Buzhayev demonstrates the drug smuggling method. They rinse a fur pelt in a basin of water so the drugs are dissolved. Once the water is evaporated a pure white powder remains. Joe starts the raid and a gunfight erupts. Joe falls to the ground unhurt but gun shy. Bobby grabs the shotgun and advances with the other cops. He chases Vadim into a field of tall weeds. Unable to find him he goes back to the cops who have arrested Buzhayev. The cops throw smoke bombs and flares into the weeds to flush Vadim but Bobby can't wait. He goes into the smoky burning weeds, and finally shoots Vadim.Sometime later, at the Police Academy grad ceremony, Joe says he is getting an admin job so he can spend more time with his 3 kids. Robert Grusinsky is named the valedictorian. Bobby thought he saw Amada at the ceremony but then realizes its only another woman who looks like her. He feels upset about it considering how much he misses her.

Tags: revenge, suspenseful, murder, violence, flashback

Review:
When Joe leads a raid on Booby's club and picks up several men of a high-profile Russian mobster the outcome is bloodshed - with a hit put out on Joe. With the Russians unaware of the family connection, Bobby must decide who he stands with and the risks he is willing to take for his family.We Own the Night came and went in the cinemas over here and struck me as being one of those thrillers that gets made that is solid enough to watch but not remarkable enough to do really well.
Set in the 1980's, the film does recall the cop thrillers of the 1970's to a certain point and it does feel like an old fashioned film in terms of the characters and the way it is shot and the rather grey and oppressive feel to the city of the time does lend itself to the narrative.It's not a film of gripping tension though.
The acting was top notch by Joaquin Phoenix, Mark Wahlberg (better than in The Departed), Robert Duvall (always good) and especially Eva Mendes who I've never seen like this before.
Joe Grusinsky (Mark Wahlberg): the other son Bobby (Joaquin Phoenix) did not follow the family tradition of police work but instead is involved in nightclubs - and yes there is a schism of resentment.
Two brothers at opposite end of the family spectrum require a major tragedy to bring them together, and to offer any more information to this fairly thin plot would be a disservice to those who plan to see the film.The cast is strong, partly because each of them has played similar roles countless times and have the ideas down pat.
This leads to a good deal of leniency from the part of critics (as with Night Shyamalan before it became too obvious he was shooting the same narrative structure over and over), a kind of prime for directors who don't harass the viewer with images + sounds but let the camera roll and the actors do their jobs, the story unfold and so on.We Own the Night starts very well, the exposure is excellent.
Bringing sentiments before the camera is miles away from shooting scripted sentimentalism and I think James Gray has a problem with his characters' emotions since he is only able to play on pathos and good acting..
The move is filled with some very tense moments and excellent performances by Joaquin Phoenix, Mark Wahlberg, Robert Duvall and Eva Mendes.
"We Own the night" is the story of Bobby Green (Joaquin Phoenix), a nightclub manager who has chosen a life of partying, drugs and gambling which is in stark contrast to his police captain brother (Mark Wahlberg) and police chief father (Robert Duvall).
Director James Gray is obviously trying to do a Scorsese type feature here but it falls far short of expectations.Joaquin Phoenix mumbles his way through the story with a one note performance and shows that he isn't capable of being a credible lead.
it felt like that sometimesWahlberg and Phoenix felt fake, Duvall is great but shallow somehow, and Mendes looks fine but looks out of place --and doesn't show nearly as much skin as the buzz would seem to promiseAll in all, a waste of money and good actorsBoringA mismanagement of movie resources and a waste of this viewer's time and money.
Set in the late 1980's in New York City when the drug and party world was at an all-time craze, the plot focuses on two brothers the first straight laced and NYPD cop Joseph Grusinsky(Mark Wahlberg) and second his brother Bobby(Joaquin Phoenix) the different and darker party drug snorting playboy who enjoys his sexy sidekick girlfriend Amada(Eve Mendes).
This film then turns to a sibling struggle as Joseph and his father Burt(Robert Duvall) try to convert Bobby over to the good side and leave the dark underworld of money and drugs behind.
writer/director James Grey still manages to create enough drama, tension and believability to make this a quality picture.It never hurts to have Robert DuVall, Mark Wahlberg and especially Joaquin Phoenix in your three lead roles.
Toss in a shootout in a drug factory, a really cool (but short) car chase in the rain, and hide and seek in the tall reeds and you got an above average cop thriller/family melodrama.The three leads are well cast and do a nice job of establishing the obvious lifestyle and character differences very quickly.
It shows how family is the strongest link two people can have and how love and change can take place.There are numerous relationships that run throughout the movie some last , others don't some become stronger some weaken and this is all portrayed best it can by the actors involved.The film looks amazing with some really jazzy NY scenery and extremely realistic police uniforms , equipment and station.
I kind of hope they were all in the bag as they filmed this, otherwise I will be forced to look rather dimly at the quality of decision making that Joaquin Phoenix, Mark Wahlberg and Robert Duvall make regarding the roles they choose.
I honestly think that if Wahlberg's and Phoenix's roles had been reversed, the film (and audience) would have benefited.For those that lust for crime dramas, leave your high expectations at the door, and you may enjoy.
Sadly, this promising beginning started to slowly wain with the movie petering out totally at the end.Joaquin Phoenix was unconvincing, while I think he tried hard, poor editing and directing failed him.
His character could have been much more but somehow failed to fire.Eva Mendes was truly awful, where the movie was trying to be moody and gritty, she came across as sullen and bored.As for the rest of the cast, they did the job required in an unspectacular but passable fashion.Disappointing = 3/10..
We Own the Night has a good main premise but it is not well developed.I mean,with that main concept,the story could have gone much more far away and the development is too simple,generic and predictable.Another negative point is that the slow tone makes it frequently boring.Also,I did not find the ending satisfactory.But,the cast makes this movie better than what it really is.Mark Wahlberg,Joaquin Phoenix and Robert Duvall are three excellent actors and they all bring brilliant performances on this movie.Another positive point is a chase scene which is very well filmed.We Own the Night is a mediocre movie and I found it frequently boring.Wahlberg,Phoenix and Duvall make this movie better.Without them,the rating of the movie would be a 5 and not a 6..
As deadly drug dealers fill the city with chaos a relationship plot is played out between Police Chief Albert Grusinsky (Robert Duvall) and his two sons; police captain Joseph Grusinsky (Mark Wahlberg) and night club manager Robert Green (Joaquin Phoenix).
We always here about Joaquin Phoenix, well this performance wouldn't get him through Theatre 101, Robert Duval always does the Good, the Bad and too much of the Ugly, Eva needs her edge, but ya gotta love her, but they wrote her out at the end anyway, maybe she was in jail?
Focusing on a cop turned night club owner, Bobby Green (Joaquin Phoenix), and the inner city pressure from his brother (Mark Wahlberg) and father (Robert Duvall) who are both cops trying to crackdown on the city's mass drug trade, this film achieves so much in so many aspects.
The camera work is beautiful, mixed with a slight bit of film noir while the character development is some of the best I have ever seen in a film, as you watch Bobby's unbelievable turn from the king of the night into a guilt-ridden and vengeful cop.
"We Own The Night" is the preposterous story of two Polish-American brothers, one a cop (Mark Wallberg), one a dance club manager (Joaquin Phoenix), both of whom are involved in one way or another with the Soviet-era mafia.
The lines usually come out something like, "How do you think I feel, waiting for you every night, wondering if you're alive or lying dead in some alley (or battlefield)?" When John Wayne played a military man he constantly had these conflicts with his women and he always won, as Phoenix does here.There have been lots of cop movies since American cities were turned upside down in the late 1960s and "Dirty Harry" incorporated all our fears of urban violence and serial killers.
I found it an excellent flick with great performances by Robert Duvall (Burt Grusinsky) and Joaquin Phoenix (Bobby Green).
When Phoenix's club is raided by his own blood, brother cop (Wahlberg) and Father cop (Duvall, who you pretty much know won't be around for the finale) this propels the story into scary situations, involving forced choices, where you can truly see the picture, from Phoenix's point of view, taken on a revenge path, when a hit is made on Wahlberg, by a Russian figure.
It's good to see a movie on the subject of drugs, organized crime and the police that is both hard-hitting and realistic but without the non-stop action and improbable stunts that are so prevalent in today's film industry.
Mark Wahlberg, as the cop brother, isn't in the movie much, and when he is he reprises his tough-guy role from "The Departed." Robert Duvall, as the police chief proud of his upright son and embarrassed by his other, is merely grumpy.
I imagine the reason that the film was so incredibly inconsequential is because it borrows every plot point, every character attribute, every decent action sequence from another, better, more solid movie.
Joaquin Phoenix and Mark Wahlberg are okay actors but they really didn't have much to work with, I felt that Robert Duvall who is one of the finest actors alive today was a waste cause the plot was very dull, everything about this movie was a waste.
A Brooklyn nightclub owner (Joaquin Phoenix) must choose between his family of cops (Mark Wahlberg, Robert Duvall) or the Russian mobsters that are bankrolling him.
Actually, more off- puttingly, we can tell what kind of movie it's aiming to be, like The Departed or American Gangster, not necessarily on the same grand scale but definitely in density, what with being set in 1988 with no substantial significance, an old-timer from other gangster, cop, and tough guy dramas like Robert Duvall in a supporting role wherein he portrays a wise, respected father figure, an opening sequence of real-life stills of New York police in morgues and at Mafia crime scenes, and other such forced gimmicks.
If one were surfing through cable channels and came across it, one might stop and see it through, but if one were me, a cinephile with an aggressive passion for the gangster film that went to some effort to see this film despite my lack of interest in either Joaquin Phoenix and Robert Duvall, it's a let-down.If it were honest with itself as another American cop thriller straight off the assembly line for a typical moviegoer's night out or in, then it would've actually been a bit better.
It is wonderful late 80's movie, in which Robert Green (Joaquin Phoenix) creates a loose irresponsible character as a nightclub manager who enjoys clubbing and light drugs with his girlfriend (Eva Mendes).
Are we supposed to believe that a powerful mob family doesn't know that the guy running one of their clubs (Joaquin Phoenix fantastic) which front their drug dealing is the son (with an Anglicized change) of the NY police chief?
Well enough about that.Joaquin Phoenix and Mark Wahlberg and Robert Duvall sensational in this wonderful movie.
When I watched this film I thought this was going to be a common police movie like many others but I was wrong, this is a very good movie and I think "We Own the Night" should be nominated for the best picture in the Oscar awards, of course we know that the academy prefers to nominate dramas, epics or comedy romance movies before police movies, but this movie has a very strong plot, moments of drama and good performances.I know that "We Own the Night" doesn't deserve 10 stars, I think this movie deserves between 7.7 to 7.9 stars, but I give it a 10 to increase its 7 stars which I find very low.The plot of the movie is about a family where the father and the older son are policemen and the younger son, Robert 'Bobby' Green, runs a discotheque for a Russian businessman.
I wanted to believe in this story, but I just could not get a good feel for it no matter how hard I tried.Writer/director James Gray has three credits to his name: this, a small movie called Little Odessa that I have never heard of, and The Yards, which also features Phoenix and Wahlberg in lead roles.
There are some really thrilling sequences in between times (including a raid eerily similar to a scene in the far superior American Gangster), but the film just gets too bogged down in what Gray wants to say about the characters and about the story.
If Gray can pull off excellent sequences like this, then maybe he just needs to make shorter and more thrilling films that rely heavily on scenes like this.Although the film and its story are marred with problems, the acting is fairly well done.Phoenix has done better work (Gladiator and Walk the Line come to mind almost instantaneously), but he does a very good job here nonetheless.
Phoenix's vulnerability and humanity is evident all throughout the film.Mark Wahlberg nominated for his stunning portrayal of a hard-nosed cop in last year's winner, The Departed takes on a completely different role.
The acting and dialogues are really great though, no wonder, because Joaquin Phoenix and Mark Wahlberg, the two leading actors, produced this movie themselves, which means they must have had total control over how they wanted to act in this picture.The only minor criticism I have is about the story.
Watch "Traffic" for a good analysis why the "War on drugs" has enforced more, not less, drugs into America.What is special about this story is that Mark Wahlberg, Joaquin Phoenix and Robert Duvall are a family of cops fighting drugs crime together.
Russians are threatening to flood the city with untraceable drugs, and Chief Burt Grusinsky (Robert Duvall) must worry about the safety of his newly minted captain, son Joseph (Mark Wahlberg), and rebel bar manager son, Bobby (Joaquin Phoenix).
Although Bobby gets vengeful, there's barely any dialogue about his own place in the hierarchy of bad guys who turn good and commit acts of revenge.But it has South Boston, showing up lately in The Departed and Mystic River, where both Eastwood and We Own the Night's James Gray capture the blue collar Dorchester well enough to make me want to go back to work at The University of Massachusetts to sail my little dinghy at lunch.
This movie had a great plot and great acting performances especially from Joaquin Phoenix.Bobby (Joaquin Phoenix) and his brother Joseph (Mark Wahlberg) have a completely different life style.
But i thoroughly enjoyed the movie!The move itself was directed beautifully and the way that the characters actually connected with each other and with Robert Duvall just brought the film alive.
With assured direction, great acting (with Rober Duvall the best hes been in a long time)and a great "70's" feel, We Own The Night was one of the surprise finds of 2007.Although the storyline is tried and tested,(Brothers on opposites sides of the law coming to blows), its given a fresh gritty twist by James Gray.
The only two good things I can think to say about this are that Joaquin Phoenix played his part very well and Eva Mendes, well, she made the film bearable..
This movie is a real disappointment, especially if you enjoy most of the past performances by Joaquin Phoenix and Mark Wahlberg.
Joaquin Phoenix and Mark Wahlberg play two brothers whose lives have taken different turns, but who are brought back together when the Russian Mafia threatens to destroy their family.Writer/director James Gray's movie is a tense and gripping affair.
Phoenix' character is too much in the focus of the story and the characters played by Eva Mendes and Mark Wahlberg just kind of enter and leave the plot without having too much of an impact on anything.Make no mistake, though, this is one of the best gangster movies of 2007 (just after "Eastern Promises" and way ahead of "American Gangster"), although it is much closer in atmosphere to David Fincher's character-driven "Zodiac".
The cast was solid, and the look of the picture was fine, but EVERY key turning point in the movie was driven by (1) jaw-dropping coincidence, (2) implausible stupidity by either police or criminals who are supposed to be the best at what they do, or (3) characters doing things they wouldn't do.On that last point, Joaquin Phoenix's character Bobby is certainly a contender, but the champion is Mark Wahlberg's Joe, a bold, brave, and brash, bad-ass cop who recovers from a dramatic shooting only to cower in the weeds at the end so that his previously-criminally-associated brother-turned-deputized-police-officer-for-two-days can step in to lead a major East Coast drug raid.
I thought this movie was awful and extremely contrived on just about every level and I was incredibly disappointed because of the great acting talent that was wasted here.Let me start by saying I'm a big Joaquin Phoenix fan but I never bought him as the 'Big Time Club Manager' or the 'Cop' he becomes at the end.
His brother Robert "Bobby" Green (Joaquin Phoenix) is a manager of a big night club owned by a Russian drug dealer ,as it appears later in the film.
That film starred Joaquin Phoenix and Mark Wahlberg.
For a story about familial bonds, I don't think Gray did a good job establishing the relationships between Phoenix, Wahlberg and their father, played by Robert Duvall.