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When I first saw previews for We Own The Night back when it was about to hit the theaters, I had big expectations. I’m not sure if I was really expecting it to be an Oscar quality film, but I’m admittedly a sucker for any movie that revolves around organized crime and drugs. I think one of my parents must have left me in a room where Scarface or The Godfather was playing when I was a baby and it got ingrained in my subconscious.

I’m also a big fan of Robert Duvall (The Godfather Trilogy), Marky Mark Wahlberg (even though I’ve decided he’s an honorary member of the Ben Stiller/Nicholas Cage Club for Actors Who Play Basically the Same Character in Every Movie They’re In), and Eva Mendes (Hitch, Training Day - I’m also a sucker for Latin women).

All that being said, I thought the movie was entertaining and had some really good looking scenes from a directorial standpoint, but wasn’t really anything to write home about.

The basic plot of the movie is as follows (only very limited spoilers): In the late 80′s in New York, Robert Duvall is the chief of police and the father of Marky Mark and Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix, sorry, that role in Gladiator is what he will always be remembered for in my mind). Wahlberg is the golden boy of the family. He is quickly rising through the ranks of the police department and is destined to follow in his fathers footsteps. Phoenix is the black sheep of the family, running a club for a reputed Russian mob family and using his mother’s maiden name as a business decision to avoid ties to his family. Eva Mendes plays his girlfriend and is basically around to look sexy and work the room (Quick note: There is a pretty unexpected and pretty graphic almost sex scene in the first 30 seconds of the movie. I didn’t go into this movie expecting much of any nudity, let alone from Mendes, but apparently they wanted to get that out of the way right at the beginning so they didn’t have to actually work it into the plot later on. Regardless, she is one of those women who is just obscenely gorgeous, so thanks James Gray!). The trouble begins when we learn that the nephew of the owner of Phoenix’s club is using the club as a base of operations for his drug trafficking business. Marky Mark and Robert Duvall know this and want Phoenix to help them catch the Russian. Fully aware that informing on the nephew of his employer is a poor career choice he declines. Marky Mark and Duvall respond by raiding the club anyway. We then learn that the Russian is a little bit upset by this recent inconvenience and has decided to order a hit on Marky Mark. He tells Phoenix this, not knowing they are brothers and the moral dilemmas ensue.

The best aspects of this movie were its action scenes. My personal favorite was a car chase / shootout scene which took place in a driving rain. The cinematography here was really excellent and added to the hectic nature of what was going on without bouncing the camera around and giving you motion sickness. There was another intense and pretty well done shootout scene about halfway through the movie as well.

The acting was for the most part decent, but unspectacular. Like I mentioned earlier, Wahlberg is essentially playing the same character he does in every movie, but with slightly less of an edge, so he does a fine job. Phoenix was solid, but it was far from his best work. Duvall was mediocre compared to what I’ve come to expect.

The plot really picks up the closer you get toward the end of the movie. There are a few unexpected twists and solid moments of suspense to keep you hooked. The strongest parts of the movie’s plot though are the internal dilemmas that Phoenix faces as more and more chaos enters into his life. He has rejected the “family business,” but now that his family’s well being is threatened should he reconsider? How much must he consider his girlfriend’s pleas for him to keep himself out of danger if the wrong decision may cost him his relationship? There are a couple others that he has to work through that would give too much away if I expressed them here.

Anyhow, like I said earlier, I found We Own The Night pretty entertaining, so I’d put it into the “Definitely Rent It” category if you like crime/drug movies like I do, and the “Worth Checking Out, But Don’t Run to the Store” category if you’re just picking something up for a movie night and aren’t preferential toward this genre.

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