We Own The Night

 Released Year: 2007

Directed by James Gray

Casted by:

Joaquin Phoenix as Robert "Bobby" Green/Grusinsky
Mark Wahlberg as Captain Joseph "Joe" Grusinsky
Eva Mendes as Amada Juarez
Robert Duvall as Deputy Chief Albert "Burt" Grusinsky

 Story:

In Brooklyn, New York from November 1988 through early April 1989. Bobby Green is the manager of a successful El Caribe nightclub in Brighton Beach that is frequented by Russian gangster and drug lord Vadim Nezhinski and owned by Vadim's uncle and Bobby's boss, Marat Buzhayev.

Bobby has distanced himself from his father, NYPD Deputy Chief Burt Grusinsky, and his brother, Captain Joseph Grusinsky. He has changed his last name to the maiden name of his mother, Carol Green, preferring to remain on the sidelines and enjoy a hedonistic life with his girlfriend Amada Juarez and best friend Louis "Jumbo" Falsetti.

When police forces led by Joseph make a raid on Bobby's nightclub on November 22, 1988, hoping to net Vadim, Bobby refuses to cooperate. The incident strains his relationship with his father and brother even more, to the point that he and Joseph exchange blows and insult each other's significant other (for Bobby, it is Amada, and for Joseph, it is his wife Sandra).

The police are unsuccessful in capturing Vadim, who decides to retaliate. At 5:43 pm on the evening of November 23, 1988, Joseph is shot by a masked assailant, and his unmarked police cruiser firebombed. Joseph survives the ambush, but the extent of the injury requires him to be hospitalized for four months. Vadim, unaware of Bobby's family ties, confides that the Chief will be the next victim. Bobby resolves to help the police. Behind his father's back, Bobby goes undercover inside Vadim's drug-smuggling operation and has a narrow escape. Bobby and Amada are placed under constant police protection and their relationship begins to deteriorate.

On March 20, 1989, Vadim escapes custody while being transported to a hospital. The police prepare to move Bobby and Amada to a new location. During a blinding thunderstorm, the police convoy is intercepted by Vadim's men and, during a chaotic car chase, Burt is fatally shot. Bobby passes out in the rain when he sees his father's body.

The police take Bobby and Amada back to a Sheraton Hotel near Kennedy Airport. He wakes up a few hours later and finds Joseph in the hotel room. After Joseph tells him that their father died, Bobby cries in Joseph's arms and asks how "they" found them. At the funeral, which is attended by all of the officers and their families, a colleague of Joseph's, Captain Jack Shapiro, gives him Burt's Korean War medal. Bobby is told that a Russian shipment is coming in sometime in the next week.

To avenge his father, Bobby decides to officially join the police force without the consent of Amada, who leaves him. After he is sworn into the NYPD, Bobby, now in uniform, learns the true involvement of Jumbo, his friend, and Marat, his uncle. He and Joseph organize a final sting operation, set for April 4, 1989. During the raid, Joseph is emotionally incapacitated by the memory of his shooting and cannot continue. Vadim flees into the reed beds, and the police toss in flares to smoke him out. As the beds are engulfed in flames and smoke, Bobby runs in to find Vadim himself, ignoring the other officers' pleas that he wait. Bobby shoots Vadim in the chest, mortally wounding him.

The film ends on November 3, 1989, nearly a year after its opening, with Bobby graduating from the NYPD Police Academy to become a full-time police officer, just in time for the 1990s. Before the ceremony, Joseph reveals to Bobby that he has decided to switch to a job in the administration sector, since the shooting made him think about how much he needs to spend more time with his three children (in the beginning, it was two). As the chaplain announces that Bobby is to give the valedictory speech, Bobby thinks he sees Amada in the audience, but it turns out to be an illusion. The story closes with Bobby and Joseph expressing their brotherly love.

L² Scored: 7/10

L² Comment:

Watch this when i was enjoying my trip in Pangkor. Seriously, i was in a good mood and watch it with bunch of friends, or else i wont be able to finish this film at all... To be honest, the storyline is a bit lame, but luckily with Mendes, Phoenix & Walhberg in it, the movie is still watchable... but not for the second time...

The Village

Released Year: 2004
Directed by M. Night Shyamalan

Casted by:
Bryce Dallas Howard as Ivy Elizabeth Walker
Joaquin Phoenix as Lucius Hunt
Adrien Brody as Noah Percy
William Hurt as Edward Walker
Sigourney Weaver as Alice HuntStory:

The movie starts out at a funeral of a child in a small village. The death date on the tombstone establishes the date as 1897. As the story progresses, it is revealed the villagers live in fear of nameless creatures in the woods that surround the village. They have built a barrier of oil lanterns and watch towers that are constantly manned to keep watch for "Those We Don't Speak Of", who are spoken of numerous times early in the film. It is explained that the villagers have a long-standing truce with the monsters; the villagers do not go into their woods, and the creatures do not enter their village. Even so, dead, skinned bodies of small animals are starting to appear around the village.

After the funeral, Lucius Hunt asks the village elders for permission to pass through the woods to get medical supplies from "the towns." His request is denied and, later, he is admonished by his mother, Alice, for wanting to go to the towns, which the villagers describe as "wicked places where wicked people live." It is revealed in that scene that the Elders seem to keep dark secrets of their own in the form of black boxes, the contents of which they keep hidden from their own offspring. After Lucius makes a short venture into the woods, the creatures leave warnings around the village in the form of splashes of red paint (referred by the villagers only as "the bad color") on all the villagers' doors.

Meanwhile, Ivy Elizabeth Walker, the blind daughter of the chief Elder, Edward Walker, informs Lucius that she has strong feelings for him, and he returns her affections. They arrange to be married, but things go horribly wrong when Noah Percy, a young man with apparent developmental problems who is in love with Ivy, stabs Lucius with a knife that he kept hidden away in his pocket.

Edward goes against the wishes of the other Elders, agreeing to allow Ivy to pass through the forest and seek out medicine for Lucius. Before she leaves, the first plot twist is revealed when Edward explains the secret of the creatures – they are fabrications created by the Elders in an attempt to keep any of their children from leaving the village. He does mention, however, that he had heard rumors of "real creatures" living in the woods at one time.

While Ivy is traveling through the forest, one of the beasts suddenly attacks her. She tricks it into falling into a deep hole to its death. It is then that the second plot twist is revealed — the creature is actually Noah in a costume that he had found under the floor of the room where he was kept locked from others. It is implied in that scene that it was Noah who had been skinning the animals all along.

Ivy eventually finds her way to the edge of the woods, where she encounters a large wall. After she climbs over the wall the final plot twist is revealed: the film is set in the present day (a newspaper in one scene shows July 30, 2004, the date of the film's release). A park ranger driving a Land Rover with the words "Walker Wildlife Preserve" on the side spots Ivy and is shocked to hear that she has come out of the woods. He then learns that Ivy's last name is "Walker."

It is revealed that the village was actually founded some time in the late 1970s, when Edward Walker, professor of American History at the University of Pennsylvania, approached other people he met at a grief counseling clinic after his father had been murdered. He asked them if they wished to join him in "an idea" he had. From this apparently grew "the village," a secluded town in the middle of a wildlife preserve purchased with Edward's family fortune, a place where they would be protected from any aspect of the outside world. The head ranger named "Jay" in the ranger station seen reflected in a glass door, fills in several plot points; the Walker estate pays to maintain the ranger corps, the rangers make sure no one goes into the wildlife preserve to "disturb the animal(s)", the Walker estate "paid off" the government to keep the entire wildlife preserve a "no-fly zone". Once the village was created, it appears the original "Elders" rolled the clock back to the late 19th century to what they thought was a simpler, more peaceful time.

The ranger retrieves medicine from a ranger station and Ivy returns to the village. This sequence is intercut with brief segments showing the Elders opening their black boxes, which are revealed to contain mementos from their lives in the actual outside world, including one or more items related to their past traumas. The film ends with a scene in a cabin where all the Elders are sitting around Lucius' bed. In that scene Edward points out that Noah's death will allow them to continue deceiving the rest of the villagers that there are "creatures" in the woods and all the Elders take a vote to continue living in the village. The film ends with Ivy arriving and saying "I'm back, Lucius."

L² Scored: 7.5/10

L² Comment:

Well, this is definitely a good movie which i'm really interested on. Written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan himself is a movie which u shouldn't miss. I remember when i watched it in the cinema, i was so gan zheong during the whole movie and was shocked on the twist of the story at the end...

But this is definitely not a movie for rewatch, guess knowing the ending has spoiled the mood of watching it again.