We’ve all had those times that we think if we like one thing, and like another thing, that if we combined them together, we’d have a super great thing. For example, the combination of hamburgers and French fries. However, putting the French fries in the burger may not taste so good. Such is the case with James Gray’s “We Own the Night.”

Mark Wahlberg and Joaquin Phoenix star as Joseph and Bobby Grusinsky. Joseph is following in father Burt’s (Robert Duvall) footsteps as a member of the New York Police Department. Bobby is the manager of a nightclub run by a Russian mobster who is pushing new, deadlier drugs.

Bobby has kept it secret from his employer that his brother and father are police officers. However, it comes time, after an assassination attempt on Joseph, for Bobby to choose between the dealers and his police family.
           
Director James Gray has a great sense for action scenes but doesn’t seem to have the same handle on dramatic ones. Phoenix, at one point in the film, goes straight into his Johnny Cash style of anger and seems to kill the importance of the scene.
Another problem was Eva Mendes. She looks woefully out of place against Phoenix, Duvall, and even

Wahlberg. Wahlberg turns in a good performance, but it feels too much like Gray had him step in whenever a dramatic reaction was needed or just to remind the audience he was still in the movie.
Duvall is a great casting choice to play the father of Bobby and Joseph, but, during a few key scenes that ask for a good dramatic reaction, Gray has Duvall underplay it, and it seems like it hurt the movie when it tries to create a sense of urgency.
           
Overall, it’s not the best movie, and it’s certainly not an unofficial sequel to “The Departed.” However, it is an OK drama/action movie that does not live up to its own potential.

Overall 3/5