We Own the Night (2008)

Image credit: Ann Joyce

STARE MASTERS A cop (Mark Wahlberg) and his shady brother (Joaquin Phoenix) face off in We Own the Night, a crime story that feels a bit forced

No one wears glassy-eyed anxiety better than Joaquin Phoenix, but his sharp performance as a ne'er-do-well straddling both sides of the law can't salvage We Own the Night, a slowly deflating, Russian-accented Departed. Mark Wahlberg treads familiar, if lower-key, terrain, and police patriarch Robert Duvall seems content just playing Robert Duvall. EXTRAS Soft-spoken writer-director James Gray slips in spot-on imitations of his three male stars in his otherwise scholarly commentary, and in a featurette shares how Phoenix provoked Duvall on the set to stoke his character's paternal disdain. B-