We Own the Night: A Grim, Subtle Portrait of Crime

The most jarring sight in James Gray's We Own the Night is that of a masked hitman calmly walking up to a policeman on a dark and quiet street and shooting him in the face. The burlap bag placed over the assassin's head is a simple but frightening disguise, a surprisingly inhuman-looking statement when we expected a ski mask that would at least let us see the human-shaped outline of his head. Visually, it's a great summary of the dingy, sickening quality of the violence in this movie, a darkness that makes the masked hitmen and killers in it feel almost demonically evil, closer to horror villains than actual people. In many ways, it also contrasts with the imperfect yet important human element of the movie, making it shine in a way it otherwise might not have.

While not directly based on a true story, the events of this movie are set to happen during a very real time in America's history, when the scourge that came to be known as crack cocaine was first being introduced to the streets en masse. Needless to say, the popularization of such a powerful drug shook up the criminal element of our nation, and the police didn't exactly play nice with people involved with it; when you consider the heinous crimes so many of these start-up syndicates committed, can you entirely blame them? We Own the Night doesn't shy away from the darkness inherent to both organized crime in America and the methods the police used to fight it. Other movies sometimes toe the line of glorifying the actions of criminals or cops, but this one does the opposite, simply putting some good-hearted men who've made bad decisions in a position to make better ones.

The history surrounding the drug wars of Brooklyn is rich, and the very opening moments of the movie are a moody, saxophone-laced compilation of black-and-white photographs from the time, pictures capturing the toll that these very real conflicts between the police and organized crime took on the city. It's a fleeting moment, but one of the most emotionally gripping openings to a movie that I can remember. This is a genre film that doesn’t do anything other movies haven’t already done. However, the restrained, believable performances by Mark Wahlberg and Joaquin Phoenix as a cop and the man who slowly seems to be coming under his sway make it very watchable, especially when combined with its rich and period-immersed tone. 

There's a careless quality to Phoenix's performance as gangster Bobby Green that many have criticized as lacking intensity. Still, watching the movie for myself, I like the almost-drugged quality of his acting, which perfectly encapsulates Green's attitude of I'm too powerful for the police to touch. The restrained intimacy with his girlfriend, Amanda, is undeniably there, and I see this familiar movie as a surprise only concerning Joaquin Phoenix's skill as an actor. Wahlberg's performance as Joseph, a cop who rivals Bobby and also happens to be his older brother, is more rambunctious and intense. There is an embittered confidence to Joseph that contrasts well with the relaxed spirit of his rival and brother. They are not just ideologically different. They are emotionally separated from each other, too. 

There is a somber yet featherweight quality to the soundtrack that really enhances the movie's intimacy, preventing it from becoming overwhelming. When We Own the Night wants you to be sad, the score can do its job without ever feeling as though it's trying to manipulate you emotionally. What I can only assume to be the movie's main theme sounds more like a nursery rhyme for morally conflicted killers than an epic adagio for tragedy, lending the movie a chilling eeriness. It is an eeriness that is also extended to the violence. One gloomy, rain-soaked car chase and gunfight on an urban highway is particularly startling and even grim, one of the more ferocious shootouts I've seen in a gangster flick. Still, this movie never feels like it's trying too hard or like it becomes unrealistic. 

All that said, the biggest issue I have with this movie is that, as a crime film, it doesn’t do a single thing we haven't seen other crime movies do, and do better, at that. Everything about this movie, from the dialogue to the setpieces to the very ways it chooses to tell its story, is madly cliched. The sit-down restaurants are there. The fedoras are there. The wires hidden under clothing are there. The hulking henchmen and their thick New York accents are never far away, either. I won't be as hard on the movie for its unoriginality as other critics were, as it's not trying to be original. Still, the fact that nothing I saw here was new is a little hard to ignore, especially in a genre as crowded and well-established as the gangster flick.

Despite its unoriginality, Bobby changes as the movie progresses, largely because of what the people in the crowds he runs with do to his brother, and his redemptive arc is both believable and a bit unprecedented. The contrast between the fun but illicit parties he runs and the fear that his attendees can strike in one when they’ve been crossed is distressing. This movie is trying to turn you against the criminal element, but it's not telling you outright to dislike them. The police, who are initially presented as party poopers with an iron fist, are very quickly justified in their stern spirit once the bullets start flying out of the guns of gangsters dressed to inspire fear in their enemies and probably their allies, too. We get to know both cops and gangsters, all of whom are clad in a humanity that causes us to wonder what will happen if they were to die. 

The second most jarring sight in We Own the Night is one I will not share with you for the sake of spoilers, but it is indicative of the idea that people change and grow as life blows them around, more chaotically at times than at others. This movie does not introduce new ideas to the crime genre, but it explores old, universal truths with a restrained sincerity that surprised me. This is an imperfect but subtly acted crime thriller that's grim in a way few others are, but it's also personable in a way that only good dramas can be. Its reviews aren't the greatest, and while I understand that many other critics wanted a different movie, I'm content to let this one aim lower, especially because in so many ways, it still hits its target. 

We Own the Night - 8/10

Luke 17:3-6