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We Own the Night
Columbia Pictures


6.0

based on 33 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 28 votes
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FILM:

The Yards

MPAA RATING: R for strong violence, drug material, language, some sexual content and brief nudity

Starring Joaquin Phoenix, Mark Wahlberg, Robert Duvall, and Eva Mendes

Bobby Green has turned his back on the family business. The popular manager of El Caribe, the legendary Russian-owned nightclub in Brooklyn's Brighton Beach, he has changed his last name and concealed his connection to a long line of distinguished New York cops. For Bobby, every night is a party; he greets friends and customers or dances with his beautiful Puerto Rican girlfriend, Amada, in a haze of cigarette smoke and disco music. But it's 1988, and New York City's drug trade is escalating. Bobby tries to keep a friendly distance from the Russian gangster who is operating out of the nightclub--a gangster who is being targeted by his brother, Joseph, an up-and-coming NYPD officer, as well as his father, Burt, the legendary deputy chief of police. (Columbia Pictures)

GENRE(S):	Crime \| Drama
WRITTEN BY:	James Gray
DIRECTED BY:	James Gray
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: February 12, 2008 Theatrical: October 12, 2007
RUNNING TIME:	117 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

It's awfully difficult at this point in film history to come up with a car chase that's startlingly new, but Gray pulls it off. It's the best of its kind since "The French Connection."

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

At its core, it's an exploration of the demands and obligations of brotherly love, staged with honesty, originality and a surprising spark of intelligence.

Village Voice Nick Pinkerton

The closest thing Gray's done to a commercial actioner, the film also applies his genius for tone (aided by superlative sound work) to set pieces that throb with trauma: a tinnitus-soundtracked shoot-out and a rain-slick car chase set to the tempo of windshield wipers.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

We Own the Night is defiantly, refreshingly unhip.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

With a cast like this, one has a right to expect something amazing, so the fact that We Own the Night is merely "entertaining" might cause disappointment in some quarters.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

This is an atmospheric, intense film, well acted, and when it's working it has a real urgency.

USA Today Claudia Puig

The movie really belongs to Phoenix, who gives a haunting performance with just the right degree of intensity.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

The movie's climactic car chase is as absurdly thrilling as it is innovative. Set almost silently in a blue-gray daytime downpour, it has a tough, improvisatory danger that makes the movie. If John Coltrane went in for action sequences, he'd have dug this one.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

Whatever the case, We Own The Night plays like a masterpiece because it skillfully appropriates actual masterpieces, not because it earns the label on its own merits.

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

Phoenix is an arresting presence on screen, but don't expect any "Departed"-esque fast talk from Wahlberg, who is oddly inert in a role that should crackle with brotherly ambivalence.

New York Magazine David Edelstein

Gray knows how to sell the idea of unalterable destiny with a car chase: That’s the mark of a real action director.

Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir

An intriguing blend of mainstream audience-pleaser and a more subtle, even intellectual agenda.

Variety Todd McCarthy

Adequately acted and flecked with the required quota of action to satisfy genre fans, pic recalls numerous good police dramas of the 1970s, but mostly in superficial ways that bring nothing new to the table.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

The story is too patterned and too contrived.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

At times solid and suspenseful, at times dopily implausible and woefully familiar.

Premiere Glenn Kenny

We Own the Night can't sustain itself; as the stakes of the story get higher, Gray paints it in broader and broader strokes until there's almost nothing you can believe in it anymore.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

When it goes wrong, specifically when Bobby is given a badge like an angry Earp brother in "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral," the story turns into something barely at the level of a TV cop show.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

Creaky in its plotting, occasionally electrifying in its direction, We Own the Night is even more of a throwback to old-fashioned crime dramas than Martin Scorsese's "The Departed."

TV Guide Ken Fox

Phoenix gives a nice performance as a man caught between loyalties but blind to the realities all around him, but Gray's screenplay is filled with clunky, Dr. Phil-sounding aphorisms that stop the movie cold.

Los Angeles Times Kevin Crust

It's a bare-knuckled crime drama set in 1988 that stylistically could have been made that year and emphasizes Gray's strengths as a director while drawing attention to his limitations as a writer.

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

A more accomplished film than "Yards." Yet it will fail to satisfy police movie buffs, as procedures are de-emphasized, and the drama is too perfunctory and obvious.

Portland Oregonian M. E. Russell

This is a perfectly serviceable thriller. It's just not the New York family crime saga it clearly wants to be.

New York Post Kyle Smith

Too slow to be a guilty pleasure and too dumb to be an innocent one.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

Ultimately done in not just by its familiarity -- anyone who can't figure out where the story is heading hasn't watched enough Scorsese -- but also by the convenient coincidences and contrivances Gray relies on in order to pump the story into something greater than it needs to be.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

Yet the whole thing is so generic, so been-there-before, that I spent most of it asking myself nitpicking questions. To wit:

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

Things are a little off. The style is gritty 1970s-style crime thriller, but the morals are straight out of 2007, and the movie is set in 1988.

The New Yorker Anthony Lane

Gray would have been happiest, I guess, to make movies in the nineteen-seventies, and this one feels much closer to 1975 than to 1988; he could certainly use a seventies audience to watch his movies now--one that could be trusted not to grumble about his slow, unexcitable fades.

The New York Times A.O. Scott

The problem with We Own the Night is that it mistakes sentiment for profundity, and takes its ideas about character and fate more seriously than it takes its characters and their particular fates. “I feel light as a feather,” Bobby says in a crucial scene, at which point the movie starts to sink like a stone.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

The story takes place in 1988 in the Brighton Beach neighborhood of Coney Island, but I could never figure out why; with its pitiless gangsters and virtuous boys in blue, it could have been set anywhere.

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

Gray’s writing lacks the punch and zing that might take your mind off such rickety plotting.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

The plotting is so rickety that the action hinges on suspicions roused by a character carrying a cigarette lighter and matches. Is that more rare or suspect than a man wearing a belt and suspenders?

Film Threat Don R. Lewis

Falls into the category of the contrived and forgettable cop drama.

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

Gray's signature long takes and overhead shots are in evidence and add to the film's fatalistic tone, and one rainy car-chase sequence is a real keeper. But, overall, it's impossible to shake the film's gloomy sense of eternal repetition.

The average user rating for this movie is 6.0 (out of 10) based on 28 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Gilbert A. gave it a0:
Nothing Special whatsoever, I was letdown by its chunky execution. It is a lifeless, mechanical, easily let-out bore with no effect of engagement at all. Its cool look is not enough. It felt way too quick, it was fast-paced, and didn't explain much, or in better terms enough. It went so fast, it felt like an easy 80 minutes. The back did say 2 hours, but no way, it must have been way shorter than that. It wasn't just really rushed and fast, it was super-short as well, the plot went by like there is something missing. Most might disagree, but don't expect a departed sequel, it is pretty much like what people have been saying for Eragon 2006.

Bill C. gave it a0:
I would have been much more pleased if it weren't so aggressive with the effects, it is so unhip and pleased with itself that James Gray just simply gives up and offers only a weak attitude for things. I was left disappointed, no wonder there is very little reviews for this film, because it looks like a Departed sequel. With a stolen actor playing an extremely similar character. It is truly predictable, and the story is obvious in terms of violence, conflicts, and reactions. It went the weak way of things and turned great and powerful gangster fun into a craphole of darkness where bitterness, and nothing can be seen. The thought of nothing and discomforting positions, where you become guilty of watching this film, it doesn't just have straight sex, it is obsessed with it. And the script felt like it was written by a 12-year-old, who makes things clearly simple enough for a seven-year old to understand. But with the addition of drugs, sex, violence, and -beepin- language, we get a restricted acomplyse. For me, this is Octobers worst big-hit since never. This is unique, but no one is pleased due to the terrible acting from Mark Walhberg, and his showing of age in his career during his previous productions Shooter film, which let most users down. From that, no one is willing to see this film because he is just not doing well. Anyways, if you have seen Shooter, DON'T, and if you do, DON'T see this either. Because their both the same, both sharing easily constructed plots, predictable ends, dull traits, and boringly pretty much the same thing as the trailer. Which shows only the best parts, and you don't realize that those really amazing parts are TOTALLY WASTED from poor direction. Wow was I sure mislead.

Jay H. gave it a5:
Imagine, a story about two brothers on opposite sides of the law..like that hasn't been done a million times before! Besides it's lack of originality, it has a negativity that leaves the viewer with a foul taste. It has one great car chase, the rest is predictable and slow moving. The characters are poorly developed. It is well produced however, and the actors do indeed try.

Benoit D. gave it a10:
On of the best movie I ever saw. Everything is perfect.

Madhu M. gave it a7:
Great movie. But it leaves you wanting more. Great acting by a great cast. Some really intense scenes, but the ending was just "okay" for me.

Mark C. gave it a6:
First off, why all the Departed comparisons? Is it because of the stellar cast in an average movie with an anticlimactic ending. Because thats about all the comparisons that I noticed, well maybe the cops and badguys thing but C'mon. This movie was just OK, not great but worth watching.

Jared C. gave it a7:
In We Own The Night, Bobby Green(played by Joaquin Phoenix) the owner of a night club, finds himself, his police captain brother Joseph, his father, a police chief, and his girlfriend in the center of a crime wave due to gangsters and drug dealers who are killing cops at an increasingly high rate. The movie was better than I expected, as I walked in not knowing what the movie was about(I had not seen the trailers or heard much about it prior to watching it). Joaquin Phoenix gave a good performance as the lead, but he didn't wow me as he did in Walk the Line(however, I don't blame him; His character felt underdeveloped to me, as did many others). Mark Wahlberg was just above average as Bobby's tough older brother who doesn't approve of his wild behavior. Eva Mendez plays Bobby's girlfriend and I found her part in the film almost pointless and her performance was just average. The movie drags in parts but for the most part it isn't boring and kept my attention. Although there was not much that really set the movie high above the average crime thriller, it did leave an impact on me at the end. I recommend the movie to those who are looking to pass the time.

We Own the Night Columbia Pictures

We Own the Night
Columbia Pictures