We Own the Night

We Own the Night
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	James Gray
Produced by	Marc Butan Joaquin Phoenix Mark Wahlberg Nick Wechsler
Written by	James Gray
Starring	Joaquin Phoenix Mark Wahlberg Eva Mendes Robert Duvall
Music by	Wojciech Kilar
Cinematography	Joaquín Baca-Asay
Editing by	John Axelrad
Studio	2929 Productions Universal Pictures (international)
Distributed by	Columbia Pictures
Release date(s)	May 25, 2007 (2007-05-25) (Cannes) October 12, 2007 (2007-10-12) (United States)
Running time	117 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$21 million [1]
Box office	$54,926,886

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 film to feature Phoenix and Wahlberg together, the first being The Yards. The film's title comes from the motto of the NYPD's Street Crimes Unit, which disbanded in 2002.

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 was released in Australia on February 28, 2008.

Plot

The film is set in Brooklyn, New York from November 1988 through early April 1989. Bobby Green (Joaquin Phoenix) is the manager of a successful El Caribe nightclub in Brighton Beach that is frequented by Russian gangster and drug lord Vadim Nezhinski (Alex Veadov) and owned by Vadim's uncle and Bobby's boss, Marat Buzhayev.

Bobby has distanced himself from his police deputy chief father Burt Grusinsky (Robert Duvall) and his police captain brother Joseph Grusinsky (Mark Wahlberg) and changed his last name to the maiden name of his mother, Carol Green, preferring to remain on the sidelines and enjoy a hedonistic life with his girlfriend Amada Juarez (Eva Mendes) and best friend Louis "Jumbo" Falsetti (Danny Hoch). When police forces led by Joseph make a raid on Bobby's nightclub on November 22, 1988, hoping to net Vadim, Bobby refuses to cooperate. The incident strains his relationship with his father and brother even more, to the point that he and Joseph exchange blows and insult each other's significant other (for Bobby, it is Amada, and for Joseph, it is his wife Sandra).

The police are unsuccessful in capturing Vadim, who decides to retaliate. At 5:43 pm on the evening of November 23, 1988, Joseph is shot by a masked assailant, and his unmarked police cruiser firebombed. Joseph survives the ambush, but the extent of the injury requires him to be hospitalized for four months. Bobby visits his brother in the hospital and realizes that he actually cares about what happened to his brother and father. He resolves to help his father and the police. Despite Burt's apprehension, Bobby goes undercover inside Vadim's drug-smuggling operation. Bobby and Amada are placed under constant police protection and their relationship begins to deteriorate.

On March 20, 1989, Vadim escapes custody while being transported to a hospital. The police prepare to move Bobby and Amada to a new location. During a blinding thunderstorm, the police convoy is intercepted by Vadim's men and, during a chaotic car chase, Burt is fatally shot. Bobby passes out in the rain when he sees his father's body. The police take Bobby and Amada back to a Sheraton Hotel near Kennedy Airport. He wakes up a few hours later and finds Joseph in the hotel room. After Joseph tells him that Burt died, Bobby cries in Joseph's arms and asks how "they" found them. At the funeral, which is attended by all of the officers and their families, a colleague of Joseph's, Captain Jack Shapiro, gives him Burt's Korean War medal and informs him that they will find a Russian shipment that is coming in sometime in the next 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, during which scenes are shown of him getting a picture taken in a police uniform, Bobby and Joseph work together to 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 on. Vadim flees into the reed beds and the police begin to smoke it. As the officers try and stop Bobby, he ignores their pleas and goes in, looking for Vadim. He finally sees him and shoots him down. Vadim looks up and utters "Bobby", and curses him with his last breath as Bobby stands over him.

The film ends on November 3, 1989, nearly a year after the film's opening, with Bobby graduating from the NYPD Police Academy to become a full-time police officer, just in time for the 1990s. Before the ceremony, Joseph reveals to Bobby that he has decided to switch to a job in the administration sector, since the shooting made him think about how much he needs to spend more time with his three children (in the beginning, it was two). As the chaplain announces that Bobby is to give the valedictory speech, Bobby thinks he sees Amada in the audience, but it turns out to be an illusion. The film closes with Bobby and Joseph expressing their brotherly love for each other.

Cast

• Joaquin Phoenix as Robert "Bobby" Green/Grusinsky
• Mark Wahlberg as Captain Joseph "Joe" Grusinsky
• Eva Mendes as Amada Juarez
• Robert Duvall as Deputy Chief Albert "Burt" Grusinsky
• Alex Veadov as Vadim Nezhinski
• Dominic Colon as Freddie
• Danny Hoch as Louis "Jumbo" Falsetti
• Oleg Taktarov as Pavel Lubyarski
• Moni Moshonov as Marat Buzhayev
• Antoni Corone as Lieutenant Michael Solo
• Craig Walker as Russell De Keifer
• Tony Musante as Captain Jack Shapiro
• Yelena Solovey as Kalina Buzhayev
• Coati Mundi as Himself

Former New York Mayor Ed Koch made a cameo as himself.

Reception

The film received mixed reviews from critics. As of May 2009 on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, 55% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 133 reviews.^[3] On Metacritic, the film had an average score of 59 out of 100, based on 33 reviews.^[4]

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.^[5] 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.^[6]

The film was a commercial success in the United States, since Sony Pictures only paid $11 million for the rights to distribute this film.^[7] Sony Pictures released this film through their division, Columbia Pictures.

The film has been a hit in the United States DVD market, as it has brought in more than $22 million in DVD sales^[8] and more than $32 million in DVD rentals.^[9]

References

1. ^ http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=weownthenight.htm
2. ^ "Festival de Cannes: We Own the Night". festival-cannes.com. http://www.festival-cannes.com/en/archives/ficheFilm/id/4430729/year/2007.html. Retrieved 2009-12-20. 
3. ^ "We Own The Night - Rotten Tomatoes". Rotten Tomatoes. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/we_own_the_night/. Retrieved 2009-05-29. 
4. ^ "We Own the Night (2007): Reviews". Metacritic. http://www.metacritic.com/film/titles/weownthenight. Retrieved 2007-10-15. 
5. ^ "We Own the Night (2007) - Weekend Box Office Results". Box Office Mojo. http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=weekend&id=weownthenight.htm. Retrieved 2008-03-05. 
6. ^ "We Own the Night (2007)". Box Office Mojo. http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=main&id=weownthenight.htm. Retrieved 2008-03-05. 
7. ^ Lim, Dennis (September 9, 2007). "An Auteur for a Neglected New York City". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/09/movies/moviesspecial/09lim.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin. 
8. ^ [1]
9. ^ [2]

External links

• Official website
• We Own the Night at the Internet Movie Database
• We Own the Night at Rotten Tomatoes
• We Own the Night at Metacritic
• We Own the Night at Box Office Mojo
• We Own the Night at AllRovi