If you're going to grab the attention from the off then what better way than to feature Eva Mendes getting down and dirty on a grotty settee. With Joaquin Phoenix.

She's Amada, the sinuous Puerto Rican girlfriend of nightclub boss Bobby (Phoenix), the manager of El Caribe, a Russian-owned danceteria in New York's Brighton Beach.

He's changed his surname to Green to distance himself from brother Joseph Grusinsky (Wahlberg), a gleaming-buttoned up-and-comer in the NYPD and his dad Burt (Duvall), a veteran deputy police chief.

Strained relations creak to breaking point when it's obvious even to the rozzers that El Caribe - a throbbing cross between Studio 54 and the Palace of Versaille - is a drug den.

Pusher par excellence is the vicious tank-topped Vadim (Alex Veadov), the nephew of genial old Russkie club owner Marat Bujayev (Moni Moshonov).

So when Joseph gets a bullet through the cheek and word on the street is that it's pop next, Bobby has to cross the line.

Harking back to the gritty police dramas of the 1970s, James Gray's overcooked thriller is as big on doom as it is on gloom.

The noirish dialogue lurches from pearls like "better to be judged by twelve men than carried by six" to gibberish like "if you p**s your pants you can only stay warm for so long. " Eh?

A sagging narrative isn't helped by daft implausibilities: Do we really buy the fact that ruthless Russian mobsters haven't twigged that Joseph's family are more plod than Dixon of Dock Green?

Bizarrely, one of the only real dramatic sparks is provided by Mendes...when she discovers Joseph is about to take some police entry exams without telling her. The swine.

Plus points include a terrific car chase through a digitised rainstorm that gives the Bourne setpieces a run for their money and a genuine heart-stopper when a wire-tapped Joseph enters the dragon's den.

Ultimately, it has the feel of a dulled down Departed rather the a souped-up French Connection. Solid but underwhelming.

Tim Evans