Product Details

• Actors: Mark Wahlberg, Joaquin Phoenix, Eva Mendes, Robert Duvall, Alex Veadov
• Directors: James Gray
• Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 5.1), French (Dolby Digital 5.1), Spanish (Dolby Digital 5.1)
• Subtitles: English, French, Spanish
• Dubbed: French, Spanish
• Region: Region 1 encoding (US and Canada only)
  PLEASE NOTE: Some Region 1 DVDs may contain Regional Coding Enhancement (RCE). Some, but not all, of our international customers have had problems playing these enhanced discs on what are called "region-free" DVD players. For more information on RCE, click .
• Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Studio: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
• DVD Release Date: February 12, 2008
• Run Time: 117 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (99 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000ZS8GWQ
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #17,865 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• Learn more about "We Own the Night" on IMDb

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

In We Own the Night, Joaquin Phoenix, whose eyes burn with sullen anger even when he's looking at the woman he loves, plays Bobby Green, a nightclub manager in the 1980s who gets caught between his blood family he tried to leave behind--a long line of police officers--and his chosen family of friends and business partners, who turn out to be drug dealers. His father (Robert Duvall) and brother (Mark Wahlberg) want Bobby to help their investigation, but Bobby resists--until the conflict takes a brutal turn. Writer/director James Gray wears his influences on his sleeve; he's clearly seen every movie that Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola ever made and aspires to follow in their footsteps. The familiarity of the movie's territory dilutes its impact, but the plot of We Own the Night remains unpredictable, the performances have a clean vitality, and Gray's moody visual style brings some life to the genre. Phoenix (Walk the Line) dives into his role, sifting through layers of guilt and familial resentment; Wahlberg and Duvall play parts they've essentially played a dozen times, but do so with commitment and integrity. Also featuring Eva Mendes (Ghost Rider) as Bobby's devoted girlfriend, who questions just how much she'll have to give up for him. --Bret Fetzer

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Product Description

What if your own family stood in the way of everything you worked for? Bobby Green (Joaquin Phoenix) has forsaken his name to escape his family and their tradition in law enforcement to pursue his ambitions as a Brooklyn nightclub owner. As he turns a blind eye to the drug dealers around him, he comes face to face with the family he abandoned when his brother (Mark Wahlberg) and father (Robert Duvall) crack down on the club. Now Bobby must choose a side. Is he going to turn informant or will he help run the biggest crime ring in New York history?

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

140 of 150 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars A Plot Threadbare from Overuse February 14, 2008

By Grady Harp HALL OF FAMETOP 50 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:DVD

WE OWN THE NIGHT is the quote from the lower portion of the badge on the uniforms of NYPD police family Deputy Chief Bert Grusinsky (Robert Duvall) and one of his two sons Capt. Joe Grusinsky (Mark Wahlberg): the other son Bobby (Joaquin Phoenix) did not follow the family tradition of police work but instead is involved in nightclubs - and yes there is a schism of resentment. Bobby has distanced himself further from his family by changing his last name to 'Green', living with a Puerto Rican girl Amada (Eva Mendes), and bonding to a wealthy Russian family who owns the nightclub where Bobby works - a front for a drug dealing business. Writer/Director James Gray ('The Yards' and 'Little Odessa') has a feel for this underbelly of New York City and captures the 1988 mood of life in the city and beneath the city with style. The problem with the story is that it has been done so many times that it is simply stale yesterday's lunch. Two brothers at opposite end of the family spectrum require a major tragedy to bring them together, and to offer any more information to this fairly thin plot would be a disservice to those who plan to see the film.

The cast is strong, partly because each of them has played similar roles countless times and have the ideas down pat. It should be noted that two of the producers of the film are Mark Wahlberg and Joaquin Phoenix, probably a reason the film was made... There are some exciting moments and enough surprises and tense times to keep the adrenaline rolling, the smaller roles are very well cast, and one of the shining attributes of the film is the gorgeous Russian liturgy inspired musical score by Wojciech Kilar. It is not a bad film; it is just too much in the same mold as countless other New York police dramas. Grady Harp, February 08

39 of 40 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Both sides think they own the night July 19, 2008

By H. Schneider

Format:DVD

The film is covering well known territory, and it doesn't bring totally new aspects into it. Just a normal "New York cops versus gangsters" flick, imagine a cross of the Departed and Eastern Promises.
We all know that in the 90s, Mr.Giuliani singlehandedly and famously cleaned up NYC (unless it really happened differently, eg via the mechanisms mentioned in Freakonomics). Before his magic touch saved the city, it appears that NY cops were the laughing stock of the streets. Gangsters were in control, it seems.
What we have here, set in 88, is a confrontation between a Russian drug ring and the cops, among whom the father and son team Duvall/Wahlberg is prominent. They have a prodigal son/brother (Phoenix), who happens to work as a night club manager for the Russians and has a Latina girl friend (Mendes). You see right away where this is leading, but then, no, you don't quite. The script succeeds in avoiding overdone predictability. With hindsight, no big surprise happens, but you never quite know how it will unfold.
In other words, if you like the genre, this is a first class product.
Some have given low grades here for the fact that it is not original. True, it isn't very. But I would rather watch a solid movie in a proven and interesting genre than an original bore in a new one.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars interesting plot and fine Joaquin Phoenix performance November 4, 2007

By Roland E. Zwick

***1/2

Taking its title from the motto engraved on all NYPD officers' badges, "We Own the Night" is essentially the Prodigal Son story transplanted to the mean, crime-ridden streets of New York City. Robert Duvall is Burt Grusinsky, a high ranking police chief with two sons, one "good" and the other "bad." Joseph has eagerly followed in his father's footsteps by becoming a captain on the force, while Bobby wants nothing whatsoever to do with the police and, in fact, spends much of his time running around with the unsavory drug dealers who frequent the lucrative nightclub he successfully manages. It isn't until one of those associates has Joseph shot after a narcotics raid on the club that Bobby learns where his true loyalties lie. He agrees to go undercover for the force to unmask the identity of the shooter and bring down the Russian drug cartel that set Joseph up.

At times, while watching the movie, I kept thinking that writer/director James Gray had simply grafted the Michael Corleone story onto "The Departed." Still, despite its derivative nature, "We Own the Night" is a tightly scripted, occasionally ingenious police procedural featuring a riveting, knockout performance by Joaquin Phoenix in the role of Bobby. He gets solid support from Duval, Mark Wahlberg as Joseph, and Eva Mendes as the true love who doesn't feel all that comfortable with Bobby's sudden fascination with helping out the police.

Gray provides a number of highly suspenseful moments, as well as a terrifically mounted car chase through the rain-soaked streets of the city. The sound is also unusually effective, creating an often surrealistic sense of dislocation at crucial dramatic moments (though the Blondie-inspired soundtrack is slightly anachronistic for 1988, the year in which the story is set).

Bobby's conversion from lawbreaker to law enforcer is not always entirely convincing and we are often forced to accept quite a bit on faith just to keep the story rolling. In the long run, though, the polish and professionalism displayed on both sides of the camera ultimately lift the movie above its various imperfections.