We Own the Night is a gritty, realist crime drama. Joaquin Phoenix plays a night club owner who occasionally dabbles in drugs, while brother Mark Wahlberg and father Robert Duvall serve in the police force. The cops are planning a big drug bust, but the Russian mafia they're trying to take down frequents Phoenix's night club. And things don't go as planned. What follows is an odyssey of constant tension and changing rules. I'll leave the rest of the details for you to discover in the theater.
The movie has a very realistic depiction of characters and events, with no superheroes and where unforeseen consequences can drastically alter the path of one's life. Indeed, Phoenix's transformation throughout the movie is unbelievably real; it is simply beyond good acting. The other actors give subtle, nuanced performances that are fleshed and full. The directing was nearly flawless. Much of the movie reminded me of the Godfather: the scope of events, the life-changing twists and turns, and the importance placed on familial ties. The entire movie seems to be an essay arguing that family is stronger than friendship. The Grusinsky family never betrayed each other, but are betrayed by best friends, father figures, and girlfriends. In fact, I found the end of the film to be the most explicit exposition, with the final words being "I love you" uttered to a family member.
Technically, this movie is rock-solid. The cinematography is beautiful--I loved the sequence with the car in the rain. There is terror and tension in so many scenes that reaches the same level as Michael Mann's best work. The car scene in the rain glued me to my seat; the scene where Phoenix enters the drug labs was heart-pounding; the end scene in the wheat field was on par with the ending to the Silence of the Lambs, where Jodie Foster is being stalked in the dark. The music was fairly perfect throughout, except a bit overbearing in the first scene.
I felt that the movie sometimes felt a bit underdeveloped. It could have benefited from more preproduction work as some plot points don't make much sense. I would have liked it to be a bit longer (15 minutes maybe), as it felt a bit rushed towards the end and as if we were missing some stuff throughout. Some characters were not unique and relied on archetypes, specifically the character of Jumbo. Other than that though this movie was quite an experience. Along with The Band's Visit and No Country for Old Men, it's my favorite of the entire Cannes Film Festival this year. I hope to see it again in theaters soon.IMDb link: http://imdb.com/title/tt0498399/