We Own The Night DVD
We Own the Night, written and directed by James Gray, is a very slow paced movie about two brothers that take different paths in their lives. Joseph (Mark Wahlberg) follows his father’s footsteps and joins the police force while Robert or “Bobby” (Joaquin Phoenix) takes the more rebellious path as he is a nightclub manager that sees and gets into his fair share of trouble. But everything changes for Bobby after a tragedy hits the family. James Gray must have watched many, many 70’s movies that tend to develop very slowly while making this film. It takes more than awhile to locate the main plot and with a quarter of the nation having ADD I’m not sure many will tolerate its pace which is flat out painful at times.
Not only is the pace bad in this movie, Gray does a mediocre job with his dialogue and direction. The beginning quarrel between brothers gets very childish at times. There was even a point in the move where Bobby called Joe’s wife fat, not at all in a comedic way and of course that’s the last straw and punches are thrown. While both Phoenix and Wahlberg are really good actors, even they couldn’t handle the forced dialogue that occurs throughout the movie with flare. There are many forced F-bombs that just seem out of place and uncomfortable. Gray fails at delivering a believable, well flowing screenplay.
Finally, the main character is not developed well. The audience needs to love, hate or at least care about the lead role and in We Own the Night, I did not. We see Phoenix as a punk club owner who disrespects his moral, upright family, uses drugs and is down right annoying at times. Then does a complete 180, quits drugs cold turkey, and forgets all of his friends after his family gets hurt. Bobby is not a character the audience will relate to or want to relate to. The only thing I liked about this character was Eva Mendes on his arm. This movie is not worth the four dollar rental fee. If you must see it, wait till it reaches HBO or Starz in a month or so and you’ll thank me later.
–Andy Gates
we own the night, movies, dvd, mark wahlberg, joaquin phoenix
