We Own the Night

Tales of brothers at cross-purposes can make for fine pieces of fiction if they’re passionately crafted, which is the case with writer/director James Gray’s latest film. We Own the Night focuses on two brothers on opposite sides of the law in ’80s Brooklyn—clean-cut, family-loving cop Joseph Grusinsky (Mark Wahlberg) and nightclub manager Robert Green (Joaquin Phoenix). Coming between the siblings is an extensive Russian drug-smuggling operation that threatens to tear their family—and borough—apart. Though it begins to lose its drive toward the end, the first two-thirds of We Own the Night are filled with fine period re-creation and excellent performances, which also include respectable turns by Robert Duvall as the family patriarch and Eva Mendes as Robert’s Latina girlfriend. And for those who find themselves drifting away from the family and criminal drama, there’s a furious car chase in the rain that’s one of the best and most realistic we’ve seen in quite a while.

Shelf Talk: Gray’s two previous features—crime dramas Little Odessa (1994) and The Yards (2000)—both garnered acclaim and substantial followings over the past decade, and the fans who enjoyed them are sure to check out the filmmaker’s latest, as are followers of New York crime stories. Both Phoenix and Wahlberg have performed well on the DVD charts over the past couple of years, with Wahlberg in Shooter, The Departed and Invincible and Phoenix in 2005’s Walk the Line.