We Own The Night (James Gray, 2007)

[Antoine Doinel]

Here's the trailer.

[a.khan]

I'm a big fan of James Gray films, especially “The Yardsâ€

[Antoine Doinel]

Saw this tonight at a preview screening and it's a solid, mesmerizing genre flick. Gray evokes the aesthetic grit and grime of '70s cop flicks, in this late '80s set ode to police officers. But thankfully, Gray's script is extraordinarily well developed, giving full bodied sketches of each of the four leads. This is never fawning, but really delves into the complexity and sacrifice of police work, particularly in a family of officers.

Wahlberg and Phoenix are absolutely kinetic, and Gray sets in motion at least two "action" (for lack of a better word) sequences that will definitely be talked about. Great stuff.

[flyonthewall2983]

I was really turned off by the first trailer I saw, due to it's obvious similarities to the trailer for The Departed, but your review of it has me turned around on it a bit. Definitely will check it out when it comes out on DVD.

[Steven H]

I have no idea how the trailers are trying to sell this film, but it's one of the best dramas of the year, hands down (I haven't felt this way about a Hollywood flick since Birth or maybe Children of Men). These characters feel real, even in the trumped up unreal setting of the NY underworld in the late 80s, with all the plastic glamour and vapid on purpose music. Eva Mendes fits right in, and my god there's a beautiful slow motion shot of her walking down a hallway in the middle of the night with a half lit cigarette in her mouth, that nearly outdoes Cheung buying noodles in a fancy dress from Wong Kar Wai's In The Mood for Love (there are a couple of slow motion shots that you hardly notice because they seem so *right* later in the movie.)

The film is filled to the brim with cliches, but when is a cliche not a cliche any more? Maybe when it feels real, and We Own The Night DOES feel real. The car chase scene is mesmerizing and seriously frightening, especially for anyone who's ever been in an accident during a storm (I have, its not fun.) There's a final scene set in a field of reeds that Gray said was inspired by Soy Cuba, but a friend told me it reminded him more of Kobayashi's Samurai Rebellion (the last scene, samurais with guns) and I agree wholeheartedly. The film presents crime, and crime fighting, as a social problem that seems to have more to do with luck than tradition and personal choice. We see families and cultures caught up in this, for whatever reason, and whether right or wrong, it hands out death, pride, fear, purpose, and shame by turn.

What a great gloomy mood it has, all sour feelings and grey damp blue colors. Anthony Lane of the New Yorker had a lot of good things to say about it, but gave the film a demerit for being too into its urbanity, which is ridiculous. The "where" is valuable and is one of the strongest characters (I do agree with him that Wahlberg doesn't sell as Phoenix's brother.) The action scenes are more like "accident tragedy" scenes, and they inspire absolutely no cheap distraction or myth making, instead they explode like a bomb someone set to go off a long time ago, but they forgot where and what it was until too late (and I feel they reflect powerfully on Phoenix's psychological state). Phoenix is totally convincing, and both his and Wahlberg's character's are subject to some serious archs and changes that just WORK. A must see film.

[LeeB.Sims]

I have no idea how the trailers are trying to sell this film... Eva Mendes fits right in, and my god there's a beautiful slow motion shot of her walking down a hallway in the middle of the night with a half lit cigarette in her mouth...

Maybe you should work for the studios because you can consider me sold.

[Polybius]

[quote="a.khan"]I'm a big fan of James Gray films, especially “The Yardsâ€

[Antoine Doinel]

I have no idea how the trailers are trying to sell this film... Eva Mendes fits right in, and my god there's a beautiful slow motion shot of her walking down a hallway in the middle of the night with a half lit cigarette in her mouth...

Maybe you should work for the studios because you can consider me sold.

I believe that amazing shot was in the theatrical trailer which I'm sure you can track down online.

[Steven H]

As for it resembling The Departed, it obviously does at first glance, but considering the feeling of lost opportunities that empty exercise left me with in the days after I saw it, I'm not sure that someone taking another bite at the apple is really such a bad thing.

For what its worth, I liked We Own The Night much more than The Departed (which I did enjoy), and it does make the Scorsese seem "empty" in comparison. If Gray has a debt, maybe its more to Hathaway, because a couple of times during the film Phoenix reminded me of Mature in Kiss of Death (but I've had this film on my mind a lot lately). Its hard for me to explain why, but maybe it has something to do with both of their characters being extremely sensitive to the major mess they've gotten caught up in. Or just the looks in their eyes?

[tavernier]

I have no idea how the trailers are trying to sell this film... Eva Mendes fits right in, and my god there's a beautiful slow motion shot of her walking down a hallway in the middle of the night with a half lit cigarette in her mouth...

Maybe you should work for the studios because you can consider me sold.

Ditto....I could watch that for two hours.

[LeeB.Sims]

Okay, so based on the recommendations I read here (and my anticipation for this film) I rented and watched The Yards last night. I thought it was a great story, amazing cast, and solid, though somewhat understated direction. When I say somewhat understated I mean that I like at least a subtle hint of signature style that indicates to me at least James Gray has a voice and I just didn't see that. However, this being the only film I have seen in his repertoire, maybe I just need to get more acclimated to it. Having said that, there were some real highlights to the visual presentation that I can point out. The color palette really seemed to help create a uniform tone to the film and the camera was sparing and subdued. I was particularly moved by an extreme close up of Mark Wahlberg's eye and masked mouth as he peers around the curtain at the bedridden cop he is being forced to assassinate. The tension and the anguish of the internal struggle going on in his head (self inflicted) is just deliciously palpable, though I think that might say more for Wahlberg's performance than Gray's direction. In summary, I just don't know at this point if Gray is going to be a great director or just a competent one. Well worth watching though.

[Polybius]

It's a little too early to tell, but I think the style he develops may just be (like Sidney Lumet) to be consistent in his choice of subject matter and to pursue that in something of a naturalistic, unobtrusive manner.

[malcolm1980]

I just saw it.

I personally thought it was better than The Departed (and I liked The Departed a lot). Joaquin Phoenix gives one of his career-best performances here. It's a pity critics aren't giving it the best of reviews.

[chaddoli]

I agree this film is excellent. A very well-made, complex and compelling picture. Incidentally, I just read James Gray's new script for work, Two Lovers - it is also very good. It's a sort of classic mysterious, erratic beauty (Gwenyth Paltrow) vs. the safe, calming wife-type - with Joaquin Phoenix torn between them.

[noelbotevera]

Big fan. I wrote about the film here.

[souvenir]

After being sorely underwhelmed by The Yards, I was surprised to find myself enthralled by this. I don't agree with the sentiments that it's superior to The Departed, and really see no reason to compare the two, but this is clearly in the Scorsese vein, especially Mean Streets and Raging Bull.

The "Heart of Glass" opening is ridiculously good, and I love how they mix Webster Hall with the United Palace Theater. That whole scene may be favorite opening from any film that came out last year. The rest is handled so well that the relative predictability can be overlooked in favor of skilled and confident genre filmmaking unafraid of surrendering to those gritty conventions long since out of style in Hollywood.

[Belmondo]

Quite right that there is no need to compare this to Scorsese, but, the large print blurb on the back of the DVD box insists that we do so - "More Intense and Entertaining than THE DEPARTED"; or so we are told.

Um... I kinda sorta agree. "The Departed" had plenty of wham bam never a dull moment superior filmmaking techniques, but it never really drew me in to the characters and (ducking for cover), I thought Jack Nicholson was way off his game and actually brought the movie down a notch.

Here, the family dynamic is a tad stretched, and Wahlberg is the one who seems off his game, but, I was very much drawn into the story and cared more about what was happening to the characters than I did in "The Departed". Also, although this is not a huge action movie, it did a great job in finding new ways to stage the big scenes and it found a new way to deal with the always thorny issue of "gotta have a girl in there somewhere", and we find that the Eva Mendes character manages to transcend the "mere girlfriend" character. Good stuff here.

[noelbotevera]

I like The Departed just fine, not Scorsese's best and it's a shame he got a gold doorstop for this. I think it's a busy, overheated mess. And I not only prefer this to Scorsese's gangster pic, but I prefer this to Coppola's gangster epic.

[Cde.]

Just saw this and I too enjoyed this more than The Departed (though I can't compare it with The Godfather, as it's been far too long since I've watched it). It's certainly less glossy, but I found it to be a far more meaningful work.

[noelbotevera]

Easy enough to see The Godfather--but hell, I can remember the films, shot by shot almost. We Own the Night seems to glow a bit brigther in memory.

Ratatouille; We Own the Night; Only Angels Have Wings

[John Cope]

Having just recently caught up with this one via video I can only echo the praise of others. It's a startling achievement; gorgeous, glorious and powerful filmmaking of the highest order. What's most impressive about it is the fact that Gray expects us to follow and care about what is, on the surface, a fairly formulaic arc; and the method he employs in order to successfully accomplish these ends is that most reviled of forms, classical melodrama. This is, however, melodrama done with excellence, exquisite precision and a very real devotion to the tenets of the form. Gray deeply understands what he is doing and what its potentialities are, which is why he achieves so much. All the elements are properly integrated and work to serve a common aesthetic goal. As such, Gray's film is alive with radical possibilities. It's a startling experience because we are so unused to seeing films so willing to commit to the brave and heady logic of their own design.

Gray relies on us to be willing to believe in what he is showing us. Nothing is "real" in the conventional sense but neither is anything "new" or "fresh". Gray does away with the fixation on innovative forms to fixate on innovation within a form. He is able to make us care because he is not tentative or uncertain with his reliance on this technique; he knows it's an effective, legitimate approach and that knowledge prevents him from the kind of self-conscious remove which has marred other recent efforts in this area. His is a complete, totally committed investment or immersion in a very particular style of truth telling. The fact that this basic story is festooned with cliches is of absolutely no consequence. Gray's dedication to emotional truth revitalizes these tropes and makes us realize how true they actually are, the depths they can potentially reach.

My favorite moment in the whole picture is right at the end when we see just how profound a place Gray's melodrama can discover. I will cloak this comment in case it might spoil something for someone, though I think the risk is pretty slight:

SpoilerShow

Bobby and Joe sit together at the commencement exercise and quietly acknowledge their love for one another. What makes this so genuinely moving, even devastating, is the way it evidences the fruits of Gray's technique. On one hand, it is a culminating moment of bonding between the brothers but it is also a moment of quiet despair; there is a tacit acknowledgement of all that has been lost to get to this point, all that had to be willingly left behind to achieve this particular bond and a bond that ultimately is absorbed within an organization which perpetuates fracturing and a persistent cycle of violence. Yet it is also a noble sacrifice. It is everything at once and that is the sign that Gray well understands what melodrama is capable of at its best-- a fine balance of all disparate elements but one which demands our total emotional investment, even while we intellectually recognize its necessary limits.

A genuine privilege and a joy to watch. Though it's early to say this, I just can't imagine seeing another American film this year as bracing and exceptional, or as fully realized, as We Own The Night.

[Antoine Doinel]

Not really sure where else to put this, but Joaquin Phoenix has retired from acting.

[Cde.]

Now taking bets on how long this will last.

[Runaway]

Im pretty sure, that it's just a for a few years. He makes an album or 2 and will be back.

[Detective Arkadin]

Does anybody here own the Blu-Ray version of this film?