We Own the Night (2007)
Average Rating: 5.8/10
Reviews Counted: 146
Fresh: 83 | Rotten: 63
Bland characters, clichéd dialogue and rickety plotting ensure We Own The Night never lives up to its potential.
Average Rating: 5.8/10
Critic Reviews: 38
Fresh: 23 | Rotten: 15
Bland characters, clichéd dialogue and rickety plotting ensure We Own The Night never lives up to its potential.
liked it
Average Rating: 3.4/5
User Ratings: 253,885
My Rating
Movie Info
Set against the backdrop of the bloody battle waged between New York City cops and the Russian mafia in the 1980s, director James Gray's period drama tells the tale of an emerging club manager whose family ties to law enforcement make him a target for the city's most dangerous criminals. Bobby Green (Joaquin Phoenix) manages one of Gotham's hottest clubs, but being in the club scene often means turning a blind eye to blatant criminal activities. Realizing that his career -- and perhaps his life
Watch It Now
Cast
-
Joaquin Phoenix
Bobby Green -
Mark Wahlberg
Lt. Joseph Grusinsky -
Eva Mendes
Amada Juarez -
Robert Duvall
Bert Grusinsky -
Antoni Corone
Michael Solo -
Moni Moshonov
Marat Bujayev -
Alex Veadov
Vadim Mezshinski -
Tony Musante
Jack Shapiro -
ADVERTISEMENT
We Own the Night Trailer & Photos
All Critics (147) | Top Critics (38) | Fresh (85) | Rotten (66) | DVD (16)
An intriguing blend of mainstream audience-pleaser and a more subtle, even intellectual agenda.
Top CriticIt's not surprising, but it's engaging enough that most patrons will likely cut the director some slack for the out-of-period details and convoluted plot contrivances that make the film seem at once sloppy and too neat.
[Gray's] feel for dialogue has rarely failed him, and it doesn't here.
A desperate violence and urgency spills out in the film's flash-point set-pieces - not least a sensational car chase, shot through a windscreen, hammering rain and a blur of fear.
This one hangs on the notion of fate, and once you've figured out whose fate is the central issue, the outcome -- even with those clumsy plot twists -- is fairly predictable.
As flat-footed as writer-director James Gray's script often sounds, his cops-vs.-mob tale can be strangely mesmerizing.
Director-writer James Gray makes it all seem more urgent than it has any right to feel, because he knows how to make tense, violent dramas that are soaking in mood.
This is a man's movie: gritty, macho, and lacking in grace.
If We Own the Night is flawed and somewhat choppy, it served notice that Gray, once he refined his technique, would be a force to be reckoned with in the cinema world.
Gray assumes rather than dramatizes the depths of his characters, scanning for gravitas where there are only rickety clichés
A generic thriller that aims for deeper resonance, We Own The Night is an intriguing feature, undermined by a plot that stretches credulity, yet which still manages to conform to predictable gangster flick cliché.
Although We Own the Night is never as suspenseful as it wants to be and can be a little formulaic, it never comes close to being boring, and that's something you can't say too often about movies these days.
(We Own the Night) was terribly written and just such a waste of great actors.
The pace may be a shade plodding at times, and the dialogue frequently does disservice to the subject matter. Yet the performances lift it out of the rut...
Lovers of good straightforward thrillers should find plenty to enjoy here.
It's a roller coaster, mainly because a good scene is typically followed by a bad one. For every thrill, there is a melodramatic moment that just doesn't work.
The drama gains momentum in the second half, so the film gets better, but it's never too far from cliche.
These are some of the finest actors in America, so it's no surprise that they deliver the goods and create solid, complex and accessible characters we can understand.
Audience Reviews for We Own the Night
Super Reviewer
Super Reviewer
Discussion Forum
There are no discussion threads for We Own the Night yet.
Latest News on We Own the Night
February 11, 2008:
RT on DVD: The Brothers Affleck Lead the Pack With Gone Baby GoneOne of the best films of last year comes to DVD this week (Gone Baby Gone, written and directed by...
November 28, 2007:
Mr. Skin Reveals Top 20 Nude Scenes of 2007In an age of fast-rising Hollywood production costs, the young actresses who strive to keep movie...
October 18, 2007:
Box Office Guru Preview: 30 Days of Night Gets Halloween Started EarlyCompetition, or a lack of it, will be the deciding factor at the North American box office this...
What's Hot On RT
Every Star Trek movie listed
Star Trek is Certified Fresh
Forest Whitaker serves the White House
Trailer for Tom Hanks thriller
Featured on RT
- Weekly Ketchup: Will Smith to Star in Wild Bunch Remake? 22
- Critics Consensus: Star Trek Into Darkness is Certified Fresh 74
- Red Carpet Roundup: Star Trek Into Darkness Edition 0
- Video Interviews with Katie Aselton & Lake Bell of Black Rock 2
- VIP Access: Eli Roth talks Aftershock 1
- Total Recall: Star Trek Movies 85
- Parental Guidance: Star Trek Into Darkness 18
Top Headlines
-
J.J. Abrams Talks Star Trek Into Darkness, Star Wars, and More
0
-
Vin Diesel Says Fast & Furious 7 Will Begin a New Trilogy
3
-
Mickey Rourke Confirmed for Expendables 3
3
-
Brad Bird Still Mulling Incredibles 2
0
-
Reese Witherspoon, Jena Malone, and Martin Short Join Inherent Vice
0
-
Bruce Willis Makes an Expiration Date
1
-
Drew Pearce Hired for Mission: Impossible 5
0
Fresh Links
Featured
Star Trek Movies Ranked
HitFix offers their own take on the worst-to-best of the Enterprise crew's cinematic adventures.
Top 10 Star Trek Villains
Rolling Stone unveils the Enterprise's most irksome adversaries.
Celebrity Yearkbook Flashback
We'll bet you never realized how many stars were cheerleaders and high school athletes!
50 Most Classic Movie Moms
In celebration of Mother's Day, TimeOut offers up 50 iconic matriarchs from the big screen.
Weirdest Movie Siblings
From Twins to The Royal Tenenbaums, Moviefone explores cinema's oddest siblings.
Promos
Follow RT on Twitter!
Spice up your feed with hourly Tomatometer updates!
Foreign Titles
- La Nuit nous appartient (FR)
- La noche es nuestra (ES)
