Bloody brothers

>> Mark Wahlberg and Joaquin Phoenix are on opposite sides of the law in James Gray’s conventional but enjoyable We Own the Night

by MATTHEW HAYS

Filmmaker James Gray’s latest film, We Own the Night, is a dark gangster/cop movie wrapped around a family melodrama. And while it’s set in the late ’80s, Gray’s sensibility is firmly rooted in his love of ’70s Hollywood films.

There are subtle casting nods to this era; in his last film, The Yards, there was Faye Dunaway, while here, it’s Robert Duvall as the patriarch. His sons, played effectively by Mark Wahlberg and Joaquin Phoenix, find themselves on opposite sides of the law when Phoenix strays from his macho cop family lineage. Duvall, after all, has always been a proud cop and Wahlberg is following in Dad’s footsteps. Phoenix, on the other hand, has always seen the police force as a kind of amoral mob, operating under its own rather twisted ethical code. He falls in with the wrong people, and before anyone can say “Godfather,” there are frayed loyalties and double-crossings.

Phoenix is running a Brooklyn club where the proprietors look the other way during copious drug deals; the cops, led by Wahlberg, move in, rather brutally, to take down the dealers and their clientele. Given his family background, Phoenix feels he’s got some immunity coming to him. Wahlberg, on the other hand, does not, and points out that Phoenix is dealing with a group of people who have no regrets about taking out cops.

I love Gray’s approach to the material; he takes the genre film and pumps it up a few notches, without ever trying to fully undermine or question it the way Cronenberg might. But that doesn’t make it a lesser film; when We Own the Night premiered at Cannes, there were grumblings that it was too set in old ways. (Variety’s Todd McCarthy called it “exceptionally conventional.”)

But that seems to be precisely Gray’s point. He’s taking a genre that’s often done so poorly and giving it the A-list treatment. Duvall, as has become a given, is perfect, while Phoenix and Wahlberg prove their mettle as conflicted brothers caught up in a spiral of violence and betrayal. As with Eastern Promises, there are hardened Russian Mafioso around to supply an enhanced layer of menace. Putin appears to have ushered in a new era of Russian representations in mob movies.

If We Own the Night doesn’t offer up a full-fledged rewriting of the genre, it does supply a few fantastic sequences. There is a car chase that will induce sweaty palms of Ronin proportions, as well as a final stakeout that delivers on the suspense front. Every now and then, we need a sentimental and nostalgic return to the mean streets of New York, back when a few bullets were fired, several blood packs were emptied and countless expletives were uttered for every line of cocaine snorted. Those were the days.

We Own the Night opens
THis Friday, Oct. 12

>> Movie Listings