We Own the Night awesomeness
Oct. 23rd, 2007 12:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dangermousieTonight Mr. Mousie and I watched a movie that was totally fun and highly recommended: We Own the Night, a cop/family drama set in the 1980s New York, starring Joaquin Phoenix, Mark Wahlberg, and Robert Duvall.
The plot is rather kdrama: Joaquin Phoenix is Bobby, the prodigal son of an upstanding New York cop family. Brother, Joe (Wahlberg) is a decorated policeman, and so is Dad (Duvall). But Bobby is content to be a club manager, and to spend time with his beautiful and awesome girlfriend Amara (Eva Mendes) and stay far far away from New York's finest. Until family loyalties draw him in to confront the mob and it goes nowhere good from there.
The movie is not perfect. It's rather old-fashioned, which might not be your thing. And the first half is better than the first. But it's interesting, character-driven, with those awesome 1980s touches, and Joaquin Phoenix is, as always, marvelous as a man whose life begins to fall apart. He angsts so well.
And I loved the characters (which felt real, somehow), and the sheer sense of fun Bobby and Amara had in the beginning, and the angstiness and revenge of the second half.
The thing I liked the most though is that, oddly (because this is in a lot of ways a male-bonding movie), WOtN features one of the healthiest, strongest steady romantic relationships I've seen in a movie for a while. I mean, Bobby/Amara just work. From the giddy fun to the angst and fighting, and the sex (the way the movie opens? Hoooo, boy) is just is really really really functional and interesting and AWESOME.
So yeah, go see for the angst, and 1980s fashion, and car chases and gun fights, and family loyalties, and sneaky mobsters. And if that doesn't work for you, go see it for Joaquin Phoenix kissing Eva Mendes' feet. Or elsewhere.
'I'll be in my bunk.'
Here is a trailer:
This is totally not related, but this made me remember Quills, so this is a Quills kissing scene:
Quills MV. OK, what does it say about the movie that by far the most wholesome relationship was between a Priest and a laundress?
The plot is rather kdrama: Joaquin Phoenix is Bobby, the prodigal son of an upstanding New York cop family. Brother, Joe (Wahlberg) is a decorated policeman, and so is Dad (Duvall). But Bobby is content to be a club manager, and to spend time with his beautiful and awesome girlfriend Amara (Eva Mendes) and stay far far away from New York's finest. Until family loyalties draw him in to confront the mob and it goes nowhere good from there.
The movie is not perfect. It's rather old-fashioned, which might not be your thing. And the first half is better than the first. But it's interesting, character-driven, with those awesome 1980s touches, and Joaquin Phoenix is, as always, marvelous as a man whose life begins to fall apart. He angsts so well.
And I loved the characters (which felt real, somehow), and the sheer sense of fun Bobby and Amara had in the beginning, and the angstiness and revenge of the second half.
The thing I liked the most though is that, oddly (because this is in a lot of ways a male-bonding movie), WOtN features one of the healthiest, strongest steady romantic relationships I've seen in a movie for a while. I mean, Bobby/Amara just work. From the giddy fun to the angst and fighting, and the sex (the way the movie opens? Hoooo, boy) is just is really really really functional and interesting and AWESOME.
So yeah, go see for the angst, and 1980s fashion, and car chases and gun fights, and family loyalties, and sneaky mobsters. And if that doesn't work for you, go see it for Joaquin Phoenix kissing Eva Mendes' feet. Or elsewhere.
'I'll be in my bunk.'
Here is a trailer:
This is totally not related, but this made me remember Quills, so this is a Quills kissing scene:
Quills MV. OK, what does it say about the movie that by far the most wholesome relationship was between a Priest and a laundress?
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Date: 2007-10-23 02:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-24 01:58 pm (UTC)