WE OWN THE NIGHT
&
GONE BABY GONE

*

Two more 2007 films. Thrillers both. Night has a better storyline but Gone has intriguing characters and a solid Boston atmosphere. Despite terrific casts in both, these films are just okay. Nothing special in either. Perhaps if they’d combined the two then we would’ve had one really terrific movie. With Night, I had problems with Joaquin Phoenix’s character getting a “special” assignment with the police before going to the academy (hey, it may happen in real life but it sounds like a writer’s trick) and the director James Gray needs to study some old gangster and western movies to see how a gunfight should be staged. With Gone, the “surprise” ending is no surprise at all and quite boring. Michelle Monaghan has second building but she’s really just the sidekick to Casey Affleck. I bet there was more to her to the Dennis Lehane novel than ended up on the screen. Oh, well.

*

The next 2007 movies on my list are: No Reservations, American Gangster, and Michael Clayton.