Broken City: Movie Review

Broken City: Movie Review

Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Russell Crowe, Catherine Zeta Jones, Jeffery Wright, Barry Pepper, Kyle Chandler
Director: Allen Hughes

In this thriller, the first solo directorial outing from one of the acclaimed Hughes Brothers, Wahlberg stars as New York Police City officer Billy Taggart.

Involved in a racial shooting which divides New York, Taggart is exonerated of the crime and kept out of jail by New York mayor Hostetler (Russell Crowe). But he's forced to walk from the police service and sets up as a private investigator, which is a business he thrives in but fails to bring in much money.

When the mayor approaches him several years later and with an election looming, offering him $50K to investigate his wife Cathleen (Zeta Jones) whom he suspects of having an affair, it appears to be an open and shut case.

However, things aren't as simple as Taggart initially believes and soon, he's involved in a case of corruption and potentially being framed for murder...

Broken City is a  predictable thriller, which lacks suspense and is a simply by the numbers story.

With its tale of underhand politics, apparent twists and turns and corruption, it offers nothing new to the genre but is a solid, if unspectacular, night out at the movies.

Wahlberg trades on his everyman schtick and is watchable enough (despite looking confused throughout) but he can't do much to lift a weak story and turn it into something remarkable. He even makes it difficult for you to root for the character to win over with flashes of alcoholism and lapsing back into drinking doing little to win you over.

Odd moments of humour puncture the proceedings but they don't, unfortunately add much to the moment. Storylines dangle - an argument with his girlfriend which leads to a split comes out of nowhere and doesn't even resolve itself as the tentacles of the conspiracy play out over Broken City's rather stuffy and dull running time.

Crowe has a reasonable stab at an accent as the Mayor and it pays off but even he can't do much to breathe any real life into the script. And Zeta-Jones adds little to the plodding proceedings as the murky storyline plays out.

All in all, Broken City isn't a massive failure when it comes to a night out. It's just a spectacularly unthrilling ride even though it is a solid film. It really could have done with a few more twists and turns to give the leaden script the intrigue and mystique it clearly needed to lift it from the mire of TV movie and to get those watching caring a little more.

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