Quick Review
Synopsis: Red-headed step child of a family of cops decides to aid in the take down of a drug ring
Pros: Great cast. Violent stuff is pretty decent. Eva Mendes masturbates in the first two minutes.
Cons: Borrrrrrrrrrrrrrriiiinnnnnnnnnnng!!!!!!!
Overall: This movie blows. It has a great cast but the script sucks and the director can’t direct. He even says on the (scripted) commentary that he had zero interest in the action scenes (namely a car chase which had great potential to stand along side the car scene from Children of Men), and his inability to craft anything mildly interesting after the first half hour is mind boggling. Look at the cast and be amazed at how not even they can save this garbage.
Long Review
Well, I got a chance to watch We Own The Night and I must say; other than the names of the main cast members, there isn’t a whole lot to like about the movie. It really, really drags for one thing. Now I’m all about the realistic depiction of police paperwork and procedure, but great movies like Heat, Se7en, Bullitt, The French Connection and American Gangster do that and they weren’t boring at all…and that’s if Night showed any of that stuff to potentially make it boring…which it didn’t.
The problem with Night is that it doesn’t know what it is. “Am I a taught police thriller? Maybe I’m a gripping family drama coupled with a tragic love story? No, no: I’m a badass action flick with a jaded anti-hero with nothing to lose! No, wait…”
A complex movie like Heat is able to pull off all these elements into one cohesive whole because it knows that, at its core, its just a cops and robbers story. Being helmed by Michael Mann doesn’t hurt, either. The movie NARC nearly suffered from the same schizophrenia that Night does, except it’s director, Joe Carnahan, was able to control what it was under the surface until it slowly revealed it’s true genre: mystery. What NARC did suffer from was too much imagination and not enough self control, so it tended to try to be bigger than it really needed to be, but that fallacy didn’t show half as much as it did in We Own The Night. (NARC, incidentally, was Carnahan’s second feature movie. Night is director James Gray’s third.)
Where NARC pretended to be The French Connection when it was actually an episode of Columbo (but more badass and with Ray Fuckin’ Liotta), Night thinks that it’s Heat but it’s actually just a big dumb action movie without any action in it. Night devolves into brainless, unbelievable action B-movie so gradually after the first 20 minutes it’s hard to notice it until after the credits roll, when you’re sitting there with your mouth open and a big electric question mark floating over your head as you wonder where it all went wrong.
Sure, the short car chase in the rain was cool in a video game kind of way, and yeah the drug bust scene had a few moments of authenticity to it, but c’mon, man. The dialogue is so flat and ho-hum that I was AMAZED that the actors were able to make the movie at least half-way watchable. I got so bored after the first half I just hit fast forward on the DVD because I already knew what was going to happen. [spoiler]“Guy gets disillusioned with his life while his girlfriend gets disillusioned with him and she leaves him and then he joins the good guys and becomes a super cop and saves the day all by himself.” Cue slow-mo of hero exiting flaming remains of the final showdown’s blasted exterior as the circle of fellow police officers revel in his badassery and display of machismo as the at-one-point fatherly villain hangs his head in proverbial shame. Crescendo with the music…and fade to black.[/spoiler]
The only other high point I can think of is the opening scene where Joaquin Phoenix joins girlfriend Eva Mendes in rubbing herself off when they are interrupted by some topless shit going down in the crooked bar he manages. It’s all down hill from there. Neither Phoenix, Mark Wahlberg nor the incomparable Robert Duvall could save this movie. Looking at his past work, I imagine this is director James Gray’s solution to save his crappy writing and lack of direction: hire great actors to make his lack of talent not show so much. But, Gray, even if your movie looks good (especially in the trailers) with the stellar cast and all that, when your movie is THIS boring, a special guest appearance by Jesus himself couldn’t make it watchable after the first hour. And that’s because a charismatic cat like Jesus could read the phone book and make it interesting. Seen ‘im do it.
So, We Own The Night just isn’t very good. And comparing it to the likes of The Departed (which was merely okay now that I looked at it again) just seems foolish and insulting to the likes of Scorsese. Not that he cares. Scorsese’s good and he knows it. And just because Marky Mark is in both movies doesn’t make your movie a successor, not even a spiritual one. So stay away from this flick, Night, but rent it at least for the few seconds of Eva Mendes’ opening scene. That part’s barely worth a rental, I suppose. But as far as a comparable movie to compare this one to, I’d have to scratch out any of the great cop movies I mentioned above and go with Eye See You, the dreadful Stallone movie from a few years back. Don’t remember it either? That’s okay, the same will be said of We Own The Night in a few more weeks.
Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
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