Film Review: We Own The Night

by Philip Key, Liverpool Daily Post

We Own The Night, (Cert. 15, 117 mins)
Stars: Joaquin Phoenix, Eva Mendes, Mark Wahlberg, Robert Duvall, Alex Veadov, Dominic Colon, Danny Hoch
Directed by James Gray

“WE OWN the night” was apparently a New York cops slogan in the 1980s as they battled drug barons.

Director/ writer James Gray’s film is set in 1988, with the New York police up against not only drug dealers but the arrival of the Russian Mafia on the scene.

It is a slow-burning thriller with Joaquin Phoenix as Robert 'Bobby' Green, the playboy manager of a nightclub run by an apparently charming Russian family.

What he keeps secret is the fact that both his brother, (Mark Wahlberg, as Capt Joseph “Joe” Grusinsky), and father, (Robert Duvall), are in the police force.

When they come to him for help in tracking a suspicious character named Vadim, he demurs. Then his brother is shot and badly wounded after a drug raid on the club in which Vadim is arrested.

There is a lot of tension as Vadim (a creepy Alex Veadov) seems untouchable and sets about ordering the murder of cops, even targeting Phoenix’s screen father (a beautifully understated performance from Robert Duvall).

Set in a sleazy side of New York, mostly at night, this is an atmospheric chiller about inner action from all those involved including Phoenix’s girlfriend (Eva Mendes) who has her own battle between love and living an easy life.