We Own the Night

Described in all the reviews I've read of it as: violent, bloody, gory; or simply just described by what its plot involves, WE OWN THE NIGHT is a film that is purely about ideas, and uses vessels like violence or brothers or family to present these ideas. Not only are all of its plot points played up in the reviews, but it seems as if those elements have dominated the perception of the film. For example, the film utilizes Russians as drug dealers, but the film is not about Russian drug dealers or the fights the cops get into with them. Rather, WE OWN THE NIGHT is about how a man's loyalties can change, and how violence can make a hell of a lot of sense. While simultaneously directing introspective performances from Joaquin Phoenix as the screw-up, but liberated child of a police officer, director James Gray also offers brilliant action sequences which are used with restrain, Robert Duvall and Mark Wahlberg as stoic cops, and striking imagery. Gray shows us Phoenix, who runs a club in Brooklyn, and looks the other way when drugs come into the club. His father (the chief of police) and brother (right hand man to the chief) bust into the club, and Phoenix is outraged that they have gone into his neck of the woods. When the guys he's been ignoring shoot his brother, a line is crossed, and the lethargic Phoenix becomes as determined as a gunslinger in an old western. Duvall plays the chief, and wants blood. The idea that cops just kill people because they're trigger-happy is a pervading idea in culture, but here James Gray shows how the chief of police wants blood because his territory has been breached. This film is primal, striking, and revelatory, great and profound.
We Own the Night: ★★★★