If you’ve seen the trailer, you’ve thought, ‘Sweet-another Departed type of movie." But in reality, they made a movie as lame and pointless as its random nothing-to-do-with-the-movie title.
We Own the Night feels like a poor, made-for-HBO rip-off of The Departed. The dialogue feels unnatural and cold. The story relies solely upon random coincidence and good luck. And you see characters doing things that one in their position would never, under any circumstances, do.
Some have said We Own the Night shows the extraordinary talent of Joaquin Phoenix, Mark Wahlberg, Robert Duvall and Eva Mendes, but how can an actor be great at a bad role that has no motivation or depth? Any extra from Law and Order could’ve played these roles just as good as these stars.
No-name director James Gray should leave the mainstream gangster genre to Scorcese and make direct-to-DVD movies or Showtime Originals.
