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"We Own the Night" isn't as good as "The Departed," but it's better than "Blow."

It belongs right around "Donnie Brascoe" on the cops-vs.-gangsters totem pole, a nice bit of real estate.

The material suggests bigger possibilities, but maybe we should be happy with what we get here. "Night" is about a family of cops at war with Russian drug dealers in late-'80s New York - a deliciously sexy premise for a movie, especially considering it stars Mark Wahlberg and Joaquin Phoenix as at-odds siblings.

Police Captain Joseph Grusinsky (Wahlberg) raids a club managed by his party-boy brother Bobby Green (Phoenix) looking for dope on a kingpin named Vadim Nezhinski (the terrifically slimy Alex Veadov). The brothers' differences go beyond last names. Bobby thinks Joe is a square and wants nothing to do with the fuzz. He likes his job and his Puerto Rican girlfriend (Eva Mendez).

The raid infuriates the Russian mob, and very quickly Joe is hospitalized with a bullet wound to the head, and Bobby's going under cover for the boys in blue.

It's a powerful story short on comic relief. Action scenes mix with sobby "I can't believe this is happening" moments. The intensity is razor taut in a fantastic early scene in which a wired Bobby finds himself blindfolded and then walking among drug mixers in a coke lab.

Director James Gray knows how to spike your heart rate. The scene builds slowly: There are the sounds of heavy breathing, a terrifying confrontation with the deadly calm Nezhinski and then a gory-as-all-get-out firefight.

Even better is a chase in the film's latter half, in which Bobby watches cars and trucks crash around him during a heavy downpour. All we hear is his wipers, but the scene is pure chaos. It has a surreal, ultratense feel that wouldn't work in an overproduced actioner.

As heavy as the drama gets, it feels underdone in spots. Why not shoot for "The Godfather" if you're building a gangster movie with such dynamic materials?

"We Own the Night" settles. Betrayals don't hit like they ought to, with some confrontations actually provoking laughs from the screening audience - never a good sign.

But there's much more good than bad here. The film's final confrontation is dramatic and exhilarating, though it doesn't quite work the way it wants to. In other words, it fits perfectly.