Cannes: "We Own The Night"

The Thursday evening press screening of James Gray's new film, a prodigal son variant in which party boy Joaquin Phoenix finds redemption after the crowd he's mixed up in start messing with his cop brother and bigger-cop father, was the first I've attended that ended with a loud chorus of boos and hisses. So what is it with the critics? Do they hate virtue, love vice? Do they really believe New York City circa 1988 (for this is where and when the film is set) would have been better served by a larger contingent of Russian mob drug dealers? It would be amusing to believe this to be the case—and to tell you the God's honest truth, I'm not entirely sure that it isn't—but the problem here isn't so much the rectitude lauded by the tale, or even the somewhat familiar tale itself, as it is the overly broad strokes Gray uses to tell it. The carefully orchestrated alternations between reflectiveness and rage that made his prior film, The Yards, so compelling, here give way to hackneyed and predictable melodrama and a ham-fisted tendency to tell rather than show, capped off by two final lines of dialogue that, if I read my colleagues correctly, really tipped the scales in favor of hooting the thing off the screen.

Phoenix is initially boyish and appealling as Bobby Green, a Brooklyn nightclub manager on a roll; he's got a hot new girlfriend (Eva Mendes), and his spot is raking in the dough for its owner, Bobby's mentor, a Russian entrepreneur who seems content to relax with his grandkids while Bobby takes care of business. Bobby's inconvenient secret is that his last name's actualy Grushinsk and that his brother (Mark Wahlberg, who costarred with Phoenix in The Yards) and his dad (Robert Duvall, on gruff autopilot) are both cops. Brother Joe just got put in charge of a narc unit that's targeting a Russian drug dealer who operates out of Bobby's club. Joe and dad want Bobby to help them out; Bobby chafes; soon enough Joe is raiding the place and Bobby himself gets swept up in the arrests. This, understandably, heightens the already tense state of affairs between the brothers. There's a juicy confrontation wherein Joe makes a disparaging remark about Bobby's "little Puerto Rican girlfriend" and Bobby spits back "Why don't you try thinking about my little Puerto Rican girlfriend while you're trying to fuck your fat fucking wife!" Ouch.

So far, so tough. But after Joe is gunned down in a failed hit (because these Russians, you know, they don't care about shooting cops), Bobby's transformation into an avenger is handled in a mostly lumbering, obvious fashion. The plot reveals are also plenty easy to predict, which wouldn't be so bad if the character stuff was working. One particular nadir is reached when Phoenix blows away a bad guy while using his Johnny Cash Walk The Line sneer. (Let me pick a few more nits while I'm at it: the club music soundtrack is about six years or so off the movie's stated period, and while I guess it was nice that Gray got former NYC mayor Ed Koch to play himself, the digital effects used to make him look 20 years younger gives his cameos the creepy-feel of those Orville Redenbacker ads currently blighting American television.)

This is all too bad, because Gray has proven himself capable of better, and given the infrequency with which he's able to make films (this is his third feature in 12 years), we're not likely to see him bounce back for a while. It's also too bad because there are some fine, if fleeting, individual sequences here, including a terrifically tense car chase in the pouring rain. To call this film a noble failure is only to apt, since its nobility actually contributes to its failure.

Comments

[Robert Jackson]

That's funny because the press screening I saw ended with a five minute standing ovation and James Gray in tears from the audience's reaction.
Well what do you expect from a critic who couldn't mamage to graduate from William Patterson college,thinks Darren Aronofsky's "Requiem for a Dream" .."lacks judgement",and who believes "The Feelies" are a great band.

[G. Kenny]

I don't quite follow your logic. Are saying that because I didn't graduate from William—it's "Paterson," by the way—college, didn't like "Requiem," etcetera, that it's somehow therefore MY FAULT that the press screening I just happened to attend—because there was, after all, more than one press screening; mine was Thursday night at the Debussy—was booed? (I didn't partake in the booing, by the way.)
They really do give any idiot a press badge these days.

[Robert Jackson]

No,what I'm saying is since James Gray doesn't(...I'm a what with a press badge?) pop out a movie in three months after post production,maybe his fans deserve the same thoughful product from you. Questions remain as to why your screening has a smattering of boos(albeit enough to raise eyebrows) while all the rest result in ovations.Let's eliminate a French based audience being polite while Gray was in attendance because that wouldn't happen under any circumstance. That maybe Russian owned clubs and cop parties are not necessarily reflective of the top 10 music choices of the day could have been overthought but it is a reality. Why would Columbia win a bidding war for distribution at 11.5 mil.at a special screening with Fox Searchlight,Lionsgate,Summit,etc-all who didn't boo,but could have politely underbid and left(Academy award nominee "Little Miss Sunshine" sold for 10 Mil/Fox). Basically what I'm saying is we don't need more Simon Cowells who want to show how smart they are. By the time you gave your review you had to have known they were ovations at subsequent screenings and probably compared notes with collegues. What was their opinion as to the difference? You know the answer to this because someone who watched a drive-in movie over his parents makeout session, you are a lover of movies like the rest of us. I just think you "picked more nits" than you should have.

[Aaron Hillis]

Yeah, Glenn, stop being such a cranky Simon Cowell! Critics ("lovers of movies like the rest of us") are only supposed to comment on what makes a film great, not point out its flaws. Need I read you your job description?

And how dare you with that whole reportage of factual first-hand happenings, i.e. booing... who do you think you are, a journalist?

Maybe your nearly three decades spent professionally honing your critical senses and sensibilities would be harder to instantly dismiss if you weren't such a Aronofky hayta... oh wait, you defended THE FOUNTAIN. Uh, then if you weren't, I dunno, a Feelies fan? Yeah, that pretty much means you know not what you talk about.

This is why I typically skip reading your poppycock in favor of Robert Jackson's much, much more insightful, POSITIVE reviews over at... uh... hmm.

[G. Kenny]

Okay, lemme call a ceasefire here. R. J. brings up some interesting questions in his second comment, and I wish he would have done so in his first rather than...well let's let bygones be bygones. I will be happy to address these as soon as I'm not fried, because right now I am.

[Robert Jackson]

Writing anything(and bidding on E-bay)while drunk should be illegal.I agree and apologize somewhat. I look foward to what "..are fine,if fleeting, sequences here..." but it was the next to last line. All I got that suggests I should even rent the DVD was that there is a car chase and Joaquin tells Mark his wife is fat. I also know Phoenix sneers like Johnny Cash. He sneers like Cash in Gladiator and as Clay Bidwell -(hell- Elvis sneers like Johnny Cash). A lot of work gets put into Gray's films -you're far off from getting Carol Frank.

[Aaron Aradillas]

Wait, are the Feelies a good band or not? I just assumed they were good because Demme used them in Something Wild. Is there one CD I should pick up? Or is it simply a New Jersey thing?

Who the fuck is Robert Jackson? I guess I should take a little bit of comfort that he read our interview, Mr. Kenny. Then again, with readers like him who needs readers.

[G. Kenny]

I thought I called a ceasefire here. But I'm not following Mr. Jackson. Did he see the film or not? Because one reason I didn't pick too many nits is because, my disappointment in the film aside, I didn't want to start giving up a lot of points to people who hadn't yet seen it. I came up with three that I can put in as examples of what doesn't play in the film, what's melodramatic and close to bathetic about it, not to mention implausible. But I'll put them in such a way that they won't constitute really bad spoilers. Here goes:
1) After 4 months of being completely out of the loop, how does Bobby still have what constitutes "special knowledge" of the case?
2) "My eyes!!!!"
3) Valedectorian? Really?

Let's make it clear—I think Gray does have talent, and I don't ever root for filmmakers to fail. I thought that "Night" missed its mark, and I'm not alone. I'd be happy to read a defense of it some time.

[Aaron Aradillas]

There's no use trying to clarify things to an asshole, Mr. Kenny. It's their nature not to understand.

Still, what's a good Feelies CD?

[WP]

Wait, Mr. Jackson...are you now suggesting that James Gray's films deserve special critical consideration simply because "a lot of work gets put into" them?? I'm sure a lot of work was put into "Saved By the Bell" also. Doesn't make it a good TV show.

[Diarmuid Cooke]

I know one thing and that is that The Feelies ARE a great band and Crazy Rhythms is one of the best albums of the eighties.

[demimonde]

Oh my God, y'all! The Feelies aside, the empirical facts are: People booed. People booed in the orchestra and they booed in the balcony. I booed. French dude next to me booed. There was booing. Individual takes on the (suck) movie aside, booing happened. And I have to say, after 10 days of mostly super-high quality films, it was refreshing to get one's boo on. It reminded me of the press screening of "Scandal," 100 years ago, at which a tittering, sneering group reaction (L.A.'s, but probably mirroring those the country over) led to a rawther good recutting of the film. James Gray: You may be able to save this film. But pay attention to the booers, not the "Robert Jacksons."
P.S. WP, I see you "Saved by the Bell" and raise you "The Facts of Life." But I'm older.

[G. Kenny]

Back to the Feelies (please): Yes, "Crazy Rhythms" is great, the best articulation of the uniqueness of their sound. Probably not very easy to find these days, in which case I commend Aaron to "Time for A Witness."