We Own the Night

Imagine "The Departed," but it takes place in New York in the '80s, and it's got worse actors, and a less interesting script, and it focuses mainly on the cops, and you've got "We Own the Night." It does have a promising opening scene with a writhing and partially exposed Eva Mendes frenching Joaquin Phoenix while she enacts a certain song by the Divinyls. And it has a cool but wannabe "French Connection" car chase through blue-hued rain-drenched streets that ends startlilngly and is filmed mostly from inside a car -- a technique "Children of Men" made use of much better. But other than that, it's mediocre.