1988. New York, Brooklyn. We see original black and white pictures taken from the N.Y. police. Smooth trumpet ballad accompanies the photos. We are sliding into the soft eighties...... but suddenly BOOM: neon colors, fat disco music (Blondie: Heart of Glass, definitely yeah!), and even fatter face of Joaquin Phoenix as Bobby climbing on Eva Mendes as Amada. I have to say that this scene is the strongest of the film.
Why I say this? Just take a quick look on the first five minutes of the movie! So we have Bobby, who runs the biggest and trendiest club, El Caribe in Brooklyn. The place is full with suspicious characters, the drog is in the air, but in the pockets for sure. The owner is a Russian fur-importeur (hmm, who believes this?), the family man Marat Buzhayev. Glittering, breath-taking party in the club.
...Fade in black...
Another party in Brooklyn. Dusty, smokey ballroom. The police is celebrating. The situation introduces all the characters in a second: Joseph (Wahlberg, again...) the honourable perfect cop, and his boss, Albert (Duvall, again and again...), who is - you won't find out - Joseph's father. Very original, but it's still nothing: of course Bobby is another son of the police chief, as Joseph's brother. And you know all these infos within the first 5-10 minutes. Didactic situation? Classic drama of oppositions (haha, the producers are Wahlberg and Phoenix)? Professionally tight story-establisment? You can decide, but one thing is sure: no one can compress as much clichés into such a short storytime than the director James Gray (no, he is not F. Gary Gray).
Maybe no need to go into more details about the story, just for safety: the police wants to catch the Russians, who "must something to do with the drug on the streets", and Bobby looks very good for the role to infiltrate into the family...
I won't continue not because of killing the points of the film (if you are more than 12 you know already what will happen), but to answer the question above (if I didn't do already..). The biggest problem is with Gray's film that it lacks any kind of originality. I mean it is really disturbing how predictable it is. Departed (which is as we know already a copy), American Gangster, L.A. Confidential (the best within the genre) and so on, just pick out examples among the very well known ones.
We Own the Night is a weak (the acting is terrible, the worst example is Danny Hoch in Jumbo's role, he is ridiculous), but at least mediocre copy, even it was predictible that these kind of clone-films will flood the cinemas.
Average film - average entertainment (even the feelgood music and the desperate search for atmosphere (see the effort of accuracy of the WTC towers' soft presence..) couldn't help) = usually 5 points, but "thanks" for the unbelievable waste ending even minus one.
4/10
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