We Own the Night

We Own the Night landed right about where I thought it would land. You had cops and gangsters and the guy they needed to go undercover, we’ve been here before. Whether or not it would sink or swim was dependent on the performances and if the story brought anything new to the table. Well you could call out each plot point before they occurred so that’s not good, but the names on the top of the poster all busted their asses to raise We Own the Night to a decent level.

Although many names were advertised, Joaquin Phoenix carried this movie from beginning to end. This is his character’s story and Phoenix does not disappoint in showing the journey from the guy who runs the gangster’s bar to undercover to actual cop. All of these turns make sense and you can follow Joaquin’s thought process through each part of the story. In the beginning he just wants to run the club, party, and not deal with his family. Then his brother gets shot and you can see him take the first tentative steps to help the police. After losing his father, the only thing that matters to Phoenix is bringing down Vadim along with whomever he is connected to. This is just a great performance by Joaquin. Mark Wahlberg and Robert Duvall fill out the roles of his brother and father. The both of them are solid here. Although Wahlberg’s name has grown in recent years, his role is very much a secondary one in We Own the Night. He has a couple of good scenes where he goes at Joaquin in the beginning of the film plus a couple of really good ones at the end after everything has gone bad. Robert Duvall is Robert Duvall. When he shows up on screen, you instantly respect him. There is no reason every to question the man. The last name that was advertised was Eva Mendes and this is probably her best performance to date. In the grand scheme of things, that is not a high compliment. Still she is fine here as Joaquin’s girlfriend who does the annoying movie girlfriend turn of leaving once Joaquin decides to go all in and become a cop to bring down Vadim. It’s always nice to see Oleg Taktarov show up in his standard thug role. Good for him.

What held We Own the Night back was that there is nothing new here. This was a very by the numbers undercover police story. It was done well but there were only a few memorable moments. Setting it in the 80s was nice but after laughing at the clothes and hair that really can’t carry the whole film. The car chase and shootout in the driving rain was a nice action beat but it wasn’t Ronin or to bring to 2007, Death Proof. The big problem was that you could call out the turning points well before they happened. Start of with the easy life, family in peril, change of heart, life in danger, loss of someone close, its go time, roll credits.

I can't really say that We Own the Night disappointed me. It could have been better, but I wasn't basing the entire fall on whether or not this delivered on the promise of it's great cast. What you ended up with was another fantastic performance by Joaquin Phoenix but it was nearly wasted on your standard undercover police story.

6 out of 10