Review of Broken City (2013) by Hoops2448 — 22 Apr 2013

Mark Wahlberg has made a career out of gritty crime dramas but ultimately all of them are lackluster. Broken City doesn't really break that trend although it does have enough good qualities to make it worth a watch.

The film follows Billy Taggert (Wahlberg), an ex cop turned private eye who is employed by the mayor of New York City (Russel Crowe) to investigate his wife's infidelity but the case ultimately leads to a minefield of death, danger and corruption.

Firstly it must be said that Broken City continues the career resurgence of Catherine Zeta Jones whose work in both this and Side Effects is exemplary despite the small nature of both roles. In fact the acting in Broken City is excellent, especially that of Wahlberg himself.

The only problem is Crowe who has the tendency to play a scene straight and then suddenly turn camp, he is inconsistent throughout and therefore the film really doesn't have a convincing or reliable villain, something that makes the film suffer in its closing.

Another flaw is that much like Killing Them Softly, it's political commentary is quite heavy handed and in places incredibly insulting. The central mystery feels more like economics 101 than a story in a thriller and to be honest its fairly hard to call the film a thriller with only a couple of action based sequences in the entire film.

It's a decent redemption story but its buried beneath a simplistic mystery and a disappointing script which doesn't really reach the gritty levels it strides for but can impress in its politics and acting, just not its storytelling.