Premise: When Joseph (Mark Wahlberg) is promoted to captain and heading up the street crimes unit, he asks his brother Bobby (Joaquin Phoenix), manager of the hottest night club in Brooklyn, to keep an eye on one of his patrons, Vadim Nezhinski (Alex Veadov), the nephew of the club’s owner, Marat Buzhayev (Moni Moshonov). Bobby refuses. After Joseph is shot, Bobby appeals to their father, Deputy Police Chief Burt Grusinsky (Robert Duvall), to let him help bring Nezhinski down.
I’m surprised that this movie didn’t do better (not that it didn’t do very well for itself, especially compared with the release of writer-director James Gray’s last picture) because the screenings were sold out two nights in a row at the theatre I went to this weekend. Even so, I must admit I’m pleased. There are times when you know about an actor or a writer or a director, and they are so good that you know s/he could be far more widely known than s/he is at present. And some of those times, you’re glad s/he isn’t, so you can sort of keep him or her to yourself. Other times, though, you want to share that person, make sure that everyone finds out about him or her, so that person you so admire can get the attention s/he deserves.
Gray is like that for me. I want more people to know who he is and watch his movies because he is a brilliant and underrated filmmaker. Although his focus is on character drama, he is equally adept with action set pieces and positively gifted when it comes to creating and sustaining tension. The feeling of foreboding hits the audience long before we get to the moment when we should really start to worry, and he builds it so slowly you are nearly hyperventilating by the time the action kicks in.
Gray was right: this is a movie about fate with the parable* of the prodigal son as its framework. I think after I post this review and start reading what critics had to say more than a few will complain that the movie has a foregone conclusion. That’s true, but knowing how it will end frees Gray up to explore how each character will get there. Plus, it serves him well not to ignore the role of the older brother. He takes it even further, long past the end of the original story, to look at how the brothers will deal with the situation in the long run.
It is a wonder to see Wahlberg and Phoenix back together on the screen and under Gray’s direction. This time around it’s Phoenix’s character that must deal with the consequences of his inaction, and to see him play than against Wahlberg with Wahlberg as the more upright and the more hot-headed brother is great. They’re both so subtle here: Wahlberg reserved and Phoenix quiet. Phoenix is so quiet, in fact, that I thought he was getting a little carried away with the mumbling until he started enunciating, and I was forced to notice when he started enunciating, realizing that it was a character choice. Phoenix does a lot of subtle physical work here that makes me feel subsequent viewings are downright necessary.
Perhaps that’s one of Gray’s best features as a director. His movies hold up well to repeat viewings because of the variety of characters and facets. It wasn’t until I was going to bed later that night I figured out how the movie dealt with class and class mobility as Dennis Lim had said.
What I still haven’t figured out is Eva Mendes’ character. I think I like her as an actress (or at least I’d like to like her), but she doesn’t have enough of a character for me to sympathize with her as I supposed to. She has scenes with Phoenix that are very sweet, but, by the time she has her inevitable freak out, I found myself thinking, “Really? That’s what kind of couple you are? Since when?” I sadly can’t go into greater specifics without giving too much away, so you will have to see for yourself.
Other than that, the only other flaw worth noting is a cut early on that suggests that the director thinks we’re stupid. It was the exact same thing that they used in Fracture to let us know we’re stupid, so it could have been studio interference rather than a directorial choice. Either way, it was unnecessary, and it makes me want to bump the grade down even more than I already have to over the lack of character for (from?) Mendes. For now, I give it a hesitant A-.
* I had to look that story up to see if it was called a parable. In my first year prose fiction class, my professor used Jesus’ parables to explain the difference between parable and allegory, and I recalled that while they would have been parables to the people who heard them, they are allegories for us reading them because we get the explanations that the disciples got. And that’s one to grown on.
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