"We Own the Night"--Spoiler Alert!

Saw this movie last night. Not really sure what I think of it. I mean, any chance to see Joaquin Phoenix, well, let's just say it didn't hurt my eyes.

Most everything Robert Duvall does on screen works for me, and works well.

Eva Mendes: hot, no doubt about it, and I am woman enough to admit it.

Mark Wahlberg played this guy already, as Dignam in The Departed. Frankly, his presence on screen irritates me.

Director James Gray says his story is about the complicated relationships of distinguished police chief Bert Grusinksy (Duvall) and his two sons--one exemplary, one wayward--in a late-80s, drug-infested Brooklyn.

Wayward son Bobby Green (Phoenix) and his girlfriend Amada Juarez (Mendes)—that relationship is well developed. My only complaint would be Bobby’s apathy concerning its abrupt and unexamined disappearance. The sense that Bobby responds more to the father figure in Marat Buzhayev, who owns the nightclub Bobby manages, than to Bert is undeniably powerful and efficient—you get it in just one scene early in the film. Bobby is definitely the disrespectful screw-up—he scoffs in his father’s and brother’s faces and mocks their vocation openly, high and slouched in a church pew. All you get from Captain Joe Grusinsky (Wahlberg), the exemplary son and cop on the rise, is that Bobby irritates him and that he’s itching to bust the Russian drug dealer who’s been seen in Bobby’s club. The relationship between Bert and Bobby is understandably strained and, though the plot moves toward a contrived tenderness between them later in the film, the viewer is not given the privilege of seeing this development take place. I was more moved by what was lost between Bobby and Buzhayev after the shake down.

It’s weird because, while the hedonistic lifestyle of Bobby and his friends is vivid and lush throughout the film, it is not enticing. On the other hand, scenes with the straight crowd—Bert, Joe’s family, and all their friends—are stuffy, robotic, about as warm and inviting as our showers lately. You want to favor the latter over the former, but it just doesn't feel that way. You find yourself wishing you were out of the bingo hall just as much as Bobby and Amada, though maybe ever so slightly more respectfully. I have no problem believing that Bobby and Amada love each other (which is why the ending seems disjointed). I believe that Bobby and Buzhayev have a close bond. I have trouble believing that such closeness could ever exist among the Grusinsky men as the script is written. It's clear to me that Bobby eventually wants it, but Bert and Joe seem at all times unnaturally detached from him.

The car chase in the rain, and all the ensuing action, is spectacular. The Russian warehouse reveal and sting are riveting, from the first step up the ominous staircase to the freefall. Stunning. Especially Bobby's up-close exposure to one particular Russian's demise. Crazy.

Watch it. Tell me what you think.