"We own the night" was the motto and rallying cry for the New York Police
Department’s Street Crimes Unit, described in this
New York
Times article as an elite and specialized plainclothes squad which existed
between 1971 and 2002 and operated almost exclusively at night in high-crime
neighborhoods. I tried to own the night when I lived in New York at that time,
but my accountant told me that the night was temporary, inevitably to be
followed by day, and therefore should be leased.
At any rate, this film is not a historical scenario involving
that particular NYPD squad, but is more of an "inspired by" treatment. It takes place in New
York and borrows the motto, but those details are about the only connection to
reality.
Joaquin Phoenix, Mark Wahlberg, and Robert Duvall play a family of three
New Yorkers who get involved on both sides of the drug wars. Duvall plays a
police chief and Wahlberg, playing Duvall's son, is a fast-rising captain in
the force. Phoenix plays Duvall's other son, a fast-living club manager who is
the family's black sheep and has changed his name from the family's Polish "Grusinski"
to the sterile "Green." Matters come to a head when Wahlberg's unit raids
Phoenix's club and arrests some Russian dope dealers. In retaliation, the
Russians nearly succeed in killing Wahlberg. Phoenix's public outrage on the
night of the raid draws the attention of some violent Russian mobsters who think he might
make a good ally. Unaware of Phoenix's fraternal connection to the man he just
ordered a hit on, one of the most fearsome baddies confesses to him that he
had Wahlberg taken out and will take out Duvall next. Phoenix keeps his
counsel and reports the conversation to his father. The next logical step is
for Phoenix to agree to work undercover for the police, since he already has
an "in" with the mob. The crux of the story is the struggle of the three
Grusinskis to infiltrate and take down the Russian mob. You can find a
detailed (spoiler) summary on the
Wikipedia entry for
We_Own_the_Night.
The best thing about the film in general is that it toys with the
audience's sympathies. In the first twenty minutes or so, the two brothers
seem equally unsympathetic. They don't seem to like one another, and we don't
take sides because we don't like either of them. As the film progresses,
however, both of them are allowed to show unexpected elements in their
personalities, and unexpected depth, so that the audience comes to respect
them both, and to see that good men need not be idealized to exhibit their
merit.
The best specific thing about the film is that it contains three good
action sequences: a terrifying shoot-out as part of a multi-car chase scene in
a heavy rain, a scene where Phoenix is undercover in a drug den and the
baddies find his wire, and a long set piece in which the police and druggies
battle in the midst of smoke and dense wild grass which grows several feet
above their heads.
The film's weaknesses are
(a) It takes too long to develop. The first time I tried to watch it, I was
so bored after ten minutes that I gave up. The opening scenes are not only
uninvolving, but also totally lacking in energy, partially because all three
of the lead actors chose to play their roles as soft-spoken guys who play
their cards close to the chest. Compared to the beginning of this film, there
is more life in The McLaughlin Group. Not to mention more sympathetic
characters.
(b) It is utterly predictable. If you can't figure out in about five
minutes that the lovable and dignified old grandpa who owns the club is
actually the mastermind behind the Russian mob, then you have probably never
seen any other movies about that or any other mob! Of course Eastern Promises
used the same shopworn device, but it had a different purpose in that film,
where the kindly old gent's connection to the mob was supposed to be obvious
to the audience in order to demonstrate the naiveté of the nurse, who did not
suspect it. Eastern Promises kept its secrets in another drawer. In We Own the
Night, however, it seems that the screenwriter thinks he's keeping that
connection as a hole card when it is actually evident to anyone who's ever
seen a movie. That same point could be made about Phoenix's lovable doofus
friend, Jumbo. You just know that he has to have secrets, and it's not
difficult to guess what those might be.
(c) Is there anyone who watched this and did not realize that Phoenix, the
party boy non-cop, would eventually become the real hero cop? Much too
Hollywood. On the other hand, that predictable outcome was partially redeemed
by two other things: (1) straight-arrow Wahlberg turned out to freeze up in
combat, which was a good development and surprised me; (2) Phoenix's integrity
and heroism cost him the love of his life, so there was no phony-baloney happy
ending to the love story.
It isn't a great crime story because audience interest sags from time to
time, and it isn't a great dramatic film because it lacks any deeper point beneath
the surface narrative. While greatness eluded it, I found it to be a reasonable
investment of my time and energy. The characters have some complexity, there
are a couple of unexpected developments, and there are several nail-biting
action scenes.
