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The opening scene of We Own the Night with Eva Mendes fingering herself on a couch making out with Joaquin Phoenix had me at hello. Thats the thing about movies sometimes, the first scene (or the trailer) gets you in good and then the rest of the film doesn't live up. Needless to say, this film did just that. The trailers and that first scene, and the second scene of Phoenix walking through a New York club with a Blondie track in the background, sucked me in, but once I was there I wasn't sure I wanted to stay.
We Own the Night is a story written and directed by James Gray, about two brothers on opposite sides of the law. Mark Wahlberg plays Joey, a straight laced cop following in the footsteps of his father, Police Chief Grusitsky played by Robert Duvall. Bobby, the younger bar manager brother is played by Phoenix and his girlfriend is the insanely hot Amada, played by the insanely hot Eva Mendes. When Joey gets appointed to a drug taskforce its Bobby's bar El Caribe thats the main target of their investigation as it is the hub of Russian drug smuggling in the city. Of course Bobby, the beloved bar manager but also good son and brother gets caught in the middle.
I kept expecting more twists and turns, or any twists and turns for that matter, but really this movie was beyond predictable. Although the acting was great by all, We Own the Night was really just a poor mans The Departed, a wannabe cop thriller. The best part about the film was that it took place in 1988 and the clothes, crimped hair, makeup and soundtrack were spot on. Other than that, it fell short and even Blondie tracks and hairsprayed bangs couldn't save it.
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I saw this movie a few months ago at a screening, and I felt the same way, especially vis-a-vis a poor man's Departed. The movie started off well, but midway through, it just kind of lost momentum/credibility.
Also, one thing that irked me about the movie was that the soundtrack was not, in fact, spot on (and happily, a few early reviews have noted this too). For instance, a lot of the music in the club was from the early '80s, but the movie took place in '88 or '89. It's a minor quibble, but sort of representative of how this movie falls short.
That was a movie review? Could someone at LAist please contact me about possibly reviewing films for you? I'd be a bit more thorough and perhaps even mildly entertaining.
I just saw Into the Wild, we could start there- unfortunately Emile Hirsch isn't fingering himself during the opening credits, but nevertheless there are some flashes of brilliance in Sean Penn's depiction of Chris McCandless' beautiful, albeit short, life.