Western Oregon Journal

Issue date: 10/26/07 Section: Culture

I had every reason to like this film. Everyone in the cast is great; the plot is ripe for tension and action and it also promises a look at the two opposing worlds of respected police officers and cocaine-sniffing club-rats. Unfortunately, this film did not own my night, or my attention.

It's 1988, and New York is feeling the Reagan-era War on Drugs. Bobby Green (Joaquin Phoenix) enjoys his life of deviance managing a club but is approached by his father, Police Chief Burt Grusinsky (Robert Duvall), and his brother Joe Grusinsky (Mark Wahlberg) who is a police captain on the narcotics team. They ask him to inform them about the drug-related happenings in his club. Bobby refuses until Joe is shot by goons that work for one of his regular patrons, a known drug kingpin. What ensues is a game of Spy vs. Spy, with Bobby as the double-agent and, eventually, as the spur-jangling hero.

Okay, let's start on a positive note. The acting in this film is pretty darn good. Despite the fact that Phoenix looks perpetually stoned out of his noggin through the whole movie, he does a good job breathing life into a virtually dead plot. Wahlberg plays a good straight-laced cop, and gets into decent fistfights with … everyone. Duvall plays his standard character type but this time with a funny-uncle twist. Eva Mendes (as Amanda Juarez) wasn't given much to work with in the script. She was basically there to get naked and look upset, which is a waste of her potential. Still, it's better than doing Ghost Rider 2.

The writing for this film was so deceptive. The opening sequence (a montage of old NYPD photos and memoirs with a classy song) promised a good commentary on police departments as families. Then, we cut to Phoenix/Mendes porn. The whole movie was like that. Instead of offering a look at two differing worlds, we just got a highly edited version of "The Departed" spliced with a heavily edited version of "Boogie Nights." This plot, I'm sorry to say, is tired and clichéd now. How many times have I seen mountains of cocaine being cut with a playing card? How many times have I seen a hero drop to his knees and hug the waist of his girlfriend without offering an explanation? Oh, and we can't forget the Kill the Villain in Revenge Sneer that Bobby must wear for most of the climax. Cops are portrayed as dumb beasts, lamenting their lack of control by hassling innocent strangers and practicing draconian punishments. Duvall is given a mass of non sequitalicizedr analogies that were just annoying. In every instance, the cops are discussing their next move, and Duvall chimes in with, "Well, marry an ape and you can't complain about smelling bananas."

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