The Jane Austen Book Club is as annoyingly estrogen-injected
as chick-flicks come, so cutesy and eager to cater to a menopausal
audience that writer/director Robin Swicord’s targeted approach often
becomes unbearable. Swicord throws just about every story-gimmick that
could easily affect women eager to be easily affected by a movie into
the script: a lesbian daughter, a cheating husband, a drug-addicted
mother, a dead dog, a loyal friend. Frankly, everything about The
Jane Austen Book Club sounds like it came straight off of the
Lifetime Channel when described in print. The sole feature that makes
the movie tolerable is its cast, which is comprised of wonderfully
talented performers who breathe life into the stereotypical material.
From Maria Bello to Kathy Baker to Emily Blunt to Hugh Dancy (whose
hunky male sidekick Grigg is about the only “quirk” in the movie that
actually charms), the actors and actresses at work here are absolutely
phenomenal given the two-dimensional characters and plot that they have
to work with. In fact, the authentic feel of their efforts will often
con viewers into believing that the movie is a realistic, introspective
look at the lives of women in contemporary American society. That is,
until one of Swicord’s many eye-rolling plot-developments or cheesy
lines of dialogue enters the picture, at which point said viewer will
remember the entirely mediocre nature of this film. Depending on how one
looks at it, The Jane Austen Book Club can either be viewed as a
bland movie made involving by the abilities of a terrific cast or a
condemnable misuse of these abilities.
We Own the Night
is a standard police procedural that is made thoroughly involving by its
impressive production values. In making the film, writer/director James
Gray clearly decided to craft a piece more concerned with nailing an
established formula than ambitiously failing at creating something new.
And nail a formula he does! Even though We Own the Night tackles
familiar “cops and drug-lords” territory, it oozes in an involving
embrace of the Hollywood style. Gray effortlessly captures the film’s
setting, a crime-ridden late-1980s Brooklyn plagued by moral dilemmas
such as the one experienced by club-manager protagonist Bobby Green
(Joaquin Phoenix). Bobby finds himself smack in the middle of a drug-war
taking place between the NYPD (in a task-force headed by his father and
brother) and the Russian mafia (of which his boss’ nephew, Vadim
Nezhinski, is a verified part of). As he decides how much to involve
himself in the conflict, Bobby is highly influenced by the atmosphere
around him, which Gray brings to life vividly. Aiding Gray’s development
of the setting are the efforts of the tremendous cast, which is
excellent across the board. Phoenix, Mark Wahlberg (as Bobby’s brother),
Robert Duvall (as Bobby’s dad), and Eva Mendes (as Bobby’s girlfriend)
all steal a fair number of scenes, realistically inventing their
characters and the sense of moral consequence that they embody. Not to
mention, the picture reaches its conclusion in one of the most
brilliantly executed, heart-pounding sequences of the year, a
high-grass-set game of cat-and-mouse between Bobby and Nezhinski. On the
whole, We Own the Night makes for a terrific entertainment.
