Dialogue, plot cop out in crime drama

"We Own the Night" sounds like the title for a horror movie about vampires.

If only.

Nope. Instead, "We Own the Night" is an old-fashioned, potboiler family crime drama that might have made an ideal premiere for a premium cable channel.

It's compelling enough to sit through once, maybe, but the flimsy premise and absurd actions shift the narrative drive into neutral with alarming frequency.

Stripped to its nubs, "We Own the Night" tells how Russian criminals bring together two estranged Polish brothers on different sides of the law in 1988 New York City.

Joseph Gruinsky (producer Mark Wahlberg, broadly replicating his tough cop character from Martin Scorsese's "The Departed") works for New York's finest. So does his father, legendary police commander Bert Gruinsky (Robert Duvall as the sort of tough-as-nails urban dweller he could play on autopilot).

Bert's other son, Bobby Green (producer Joaquin Phoenix), manages a hot nightclub run by Russian gangsters. He hates his father's spit-and-polish approach to life so much that he changed his name to Green, an act that not only establishes his rebellious character, but provides the story with a necessary plot twist.

The cops have been trying to arrest an infamous Russian drug smuggler named Vadim (Alex Veadov), nephew of the grandfatherly Marat Bujayev (Moni Moshonov), owner of Bobby's nightclub. When hot-headed Joseph publicly challenges Vadim, the gangster shows up one night outside of Joseph's house to pump a bullet into his face.

Good thing Vadim only fires one shot and doesn't make sure Joseph is dead. That provides the story with another necessary plot twist.

With Joseph hanging onto life by a thread, the guilt-ridden Bobby joins the cops and goes undercover into the world of the Russian mobsters, who don't suspect Bobby and Joseph are brothers because of their different last names.

Written and directed by James "Little Odessa" Gray, "We Own the Night" includes enough action sequences and superfluous sex scenes (supplied by Eva Mendes as Bobby's hot girlfriend) to keep genre fans happy.

But Gray's script reads like a B movie from the flip-side of a 1950s double-bill.

"It's like a war out there!" sharp old Bert observes about crime on New York's streets. Throughout the story, the characters supply constant false assurances to each other. ("It's gonna be OK!" Bobby bellows. "It's gonna be OK, son!" Bert says. "It's gonna be OK!" Joseph asserts.)

Gray pushes his story along with thudding devices, such as the Russians discovering Bobby's true identity by over-hearing Bert bellowing cop-secret information nearby.

A car chase through the rain works effectively enough, but the cops setting fire to fields of dry grass just to flush out a culprit seems dangerous and stupid, even by 1988 standards.

So do some of Bert's baffling philosophical observations, such as, "When you (urinate) in your pants, you can only stay warm for so long!"

"We Own the Night"

Two stars out of four

Opens today

Starring

Joaquin Phoenix as Bobby Green

Mark Wahlberg as Joseph Gruinsky

Robert Duvall as Bert Gruinsky

Eva Mendes as Amada Juarez

Written and directed by James Gray. Produced by Nick Wechsler, Marc Butan, Mark Wahlberg and Joaquin Phoenix. A Columbia Pictures release. Rated R (violence, drug use, sexual situations, language, nudity). Running time: 117 minutes.