We Own the Night (film)

We Own the Night is a 2007 American crime drama film written and directed by James Gray and starring Joaquin Phoenix, Mark Wahlberg, Eva Mendes and Robert Duvall. It is the third film directed by Gray, and the second to feature Phoenix and Wahlberg together, the first being 2000's The Yards. The title comes from the motto of the NYPD's Street Crimes Unit, which disbanded in 2002.

We Own the Night
North American theatrical release poster
Directed byJames Gray
Produced byMarc Butan
Joaquin Phoenix
Mark Wahlberg
Nick Wechsler
Written byJames Gray
StarringJoaquin Phoenix
Mark Wahlberg
Eva Mendes
Robert Duvall
Music byWojciech Kilar
CinematographyJoaquín Baca-Asay
Edited byJohn Axelrad
Production
company
2929 Productions
Distributed byColumbia Pictures
(North America)
Universal Pictures
(International)
Release date
  • May 25, 2007 (2007-05-25) (Cannes)
  • October 12, 2007 (2007-10-12) (United States)
Running time
117 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$21 million[1]
Box office$54.9 million

The film premiered May 25, at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival.[2] It was released October 12, 2007 in the United States and Canada. It was released in the United Kingdom on December 14, 2007 and in Australia on February 28, 2008.

Plot

Brooklyn, New York, 1988. Bobby Green (Joaquin Phoenix) is the manager of the El Caribe nightclub in Brighton Beach, which is frequented by Russian mobster and drug lord Vadim Nezhinski (Alex Veadov) and owned by Vadim's uncle Marat Buzhayev (Moni Moshonov).

Bobby has distanced himself from his father, NYPD Deputy Chief Burt Grusinsky (Robert Duvall), and his brother, Captain Joseph Grusinsky (Mark Wahlberg). Bobby uses his mother's maiden name, Green, as his last name and stays on the sidelines enjoying a hedonistic life with his girlfriend Amada Juarez (Eva Mendes) and best friend Louis "Jumbo" Falsetti (Danny Hoch).

When Joseph leads a police raid on El Caribe in hope of arresting Vadim, Bobby refuses to cooperate. The incident strains Bobby's relationship with his father and brother even more, and Bobby and Joseph come to blows.

The police are unsuccessful in making a case against Vadim, who decides to retaliate. The next evening, Joseph is shot by a masked assailant and his unmarked police cruiser is firebombed. Joseph survives the ambush and is hospitalized for four months. Vadim, unaware of Bobby's family ties, confides that the Chief will be the next victim. Bobby resolves to help the police and, without his father's knowledge, goes undercover inside Vadim's cocaine-smuggling operation with a police listening device hidden in a cigarette lighter. The device is discovered and Bobby narrowly escapes being murdered as the police raid the operation and arrest Vadim.

Bobby and Amada are placed in protective police custody and their relationship begins to deteriorate. When Vadim escapes custody while being transported to a hospital, Burt and the police prepare to move Bobby and Amada to a new location. During a torrential rainstorm the police convoy is intercepted by Vadim's men, and during a chaotic car chase Burt is fatally shot. When he sees his father's body, Bobby blacks out in the rain.

The police take Bobby and Amada back to their motel near Kennedy Airport. Bobby wakes up a few hours later and finds Joseph in the motel room. Joseph tells him that their father has been shot and killed. At the funeral, a colleague of Joseph's, Captain Jack Shapiro (Tony Musante), gives him Burt's Korean War medal. Bobby is told that a Russian shipment of cocaine is arriving sometime in the coming week.

To avenge his father, Bobby decides to officially join the police force without the consent of Amada, who leaves him. After he is sworn into the NYPD, Bobby learns the true involvement of Jumbo and Marat. He and Joseph organize a final sting operation, set for April 4, 1989. During the raid, Joseph is emotionally incapacitated by the memory of his shooting and cannot continue. Vadim flees into the reed beds, and the police toss in flares to smoke him out. As the beds are engulfed in flame and smoke, Bobby runs in to find Vadim himself, ignoring the other officers' pleas that he wait. Bobby shoots Vadim in the chest, mortally wounding him.

Nearly a year after the raid on El Caribe, Bobby, now in uniform, graduates from the NYPD Police Academy to become a full-time police officer. Before the ceremony, Joseph reveals to Bobby that he has decided to switch to a job in the administration sector, since the shooting led him to realize that he needs to spend more time with his children. As the chaplain announces that Bobby is to give the valedictorian address, Bobby thinks he sees Amada in the audience, but it turns out to be an illusion. Bobby and Joseph express their brotherly love.

Cast

Reception

As of July 5, 2018 on Rotten Tomatoes, 57% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 150 reviews, with an average rating of 5.8/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Bland characters, clichéd dialogue and rickety plotting ensure We Own The Night never lives up to its potential."[3] On Metacritic, the film has an average score of 59 out of 100, based on 33 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[4] Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade B- on scale of A+ to F.[5]

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times wrote: "This is an atmospheric, intense film, well acted, and when it's working it has a real urgency."[6] Peter Travers of Rolling Stone called it "defiantly, refreshingly unhip" and gave it 3 out of 4.[7]

Release

In its opening weekend in the United States and Canada, the film grossed $10.8 million in 2,362 theaters, ranking #3 at the box office.[8] The film grossed a total of $54.5 million worldwide — $28.5 million in the United States and Canada and $26.0 million in other territories.[1]

The film was a commercial success in the United States, as Sony Pictures only paid $11 million for the rights to distribute this film.[9] Sony Pictures released this film through its Columbia Pictures division.

The film has been a hit in the United States DVD market, as it has brought in more than $22 million in DVD sales[10] and more than $32 million in DVD rentals.[11]

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References
  1. "We Own the Night". Box Office Mojo. IMDb. Retrieved March 5, 2008.
  2. "We Own the Night". Cannes Film Festival. Retrieved December 20, 2009.
  3. "We Own The Night (2007)". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Retrieved July 5, 2018.
  4. "We Own the Night Reviews". Metacritic. CBS Interactive. Retrieved July 5, 2020.
  5. "WE OWN THE NIGHT (2007) B-". CinemaScore. Archived from the original on February 6, 2018.
  6. Ebert, Roger (October 11, 2007). "We Own the Night movie review (2007)". Chicago Sun-Times.
  7. Travers, Peter (19 October 2007). "We Own the Night". Rolling Stone.
  8. "We Own the Night: Weekend Box Office Results". Box Office Mojo. IMDb. Retrieved March 5, 2008.
  9. Lim, Dennis (September 9, 2007). "An Auteur for a Neglected New York City". The New York Times. The New York Times Company.
  10. "We Own the Night (2007): Video Sales". The Numbers. Nash Information Services. Retrieved 2017-06-20.
  11. "We Own the Night: DVD / Home Video Rentals". Box Office Mojo. IMDb. Retrieved June 20, 2017.
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