This `Night' has its day

NOT so long ago, it looked like James Gray's career as a film director might be over. His 2000 movie, "The Yards," a drama with a cast of budding young talent -- Joaquin Phoenix, Mark Wahlberg and Charlize Theron -- had just bombed at the box office, making less than $900,000 in its U.S. release. To make matters worse, Gray had been so upset about the way Miramax had handled its release that he got into a very public spitting match with the studio's then chief, Harvey Weinstein -- generally not considered an advisable path for a young filmmaker.

What a difference seven years makes. Gray has finally emerged with a new film that could earn both critical plaudits and win the 38-year-old director a larger audience. Called "We Own the Night," the movie is a gripping drama set in the 1980s at the height of a bloody war between New York police and Russian mobsters who have targeted the officers and their families. The film stars Phoenix and Wahlberg as brothers in conflict.

Financed by 2929 Productions, the Mark Cuban and Todd Wagner-owned company that bankrolled "Good Night, and Good Luck," "We Own the Night" premieres at the Cannes Film Festival next week. But the real excitement will unfold today when the film has its first screening for studio acquisition executives. With more buyers in the market than ever before, it could inspire a hotly contested bidding war between established players -- notably Lionsgate, Fox Searchlight and Paramount Vantage -- and deep-pocketed newcomers such as Overture, run by former MGM chief Chris McGurk, and Summit, now run by Patrick Wachsberger and former Paramount executive Rob Friedman.

Having had an early peek at the movie, I can see what all the excitement is about. Gray's earlier films, including his 1995 debut, "Little Odessa," were intense dramas, reminiscent of '50s films by Nicholas Ray and Elia Kazan. (Variety dismissed "The Yards" as an " 'On the Waterfront' wannabe.") Despite stellar performances from such actors as Tim Roth and Phoenix, the pictures were too dark and claustrophobic to connect with mainstream audiences.

"We Own the Night" is a big breakthrough. It's a searing family drama as well as a cops-versus-criminals thriller with the same sticky web of loyalty and rivalry seen in Martin Scorsese's best work. Phoenix is the family black sheep, running a mob-owned nightclub, while Wahlberg has become a cop like their father, played by Robert Duvall.