Broken City

Broken City (2013)

*** (out of 4)

Entertaining but very flawed political thriller about a private eye (Mark Wahlberg) who was thrown off the NYC police force but gets a major job when the Mayor (Russell Crowe) asks him to find out who his wife (Catherine Zeta-Jones) is messing around with. This case is rather easy for the man but soon he realizes that this is just the start of dirty business. BROKEN CITY, as a thriller, really doesn't work because the plot is rather silly. It's especially silly if you start to think about it too long and that's why it's best to just walk into the theater, turn your brain off and enjoy the excellent cast that's offered up here. It's always amazing to see how many great actors they can get for less-than-stellar material but the three leads are excellent as are Jeffrey Wright, Barry Pepper and Alona Tal. The performances are certainly the reason to check this film out as they help keep the film moving along no matter how many twists and turns get thrown at us. Wahlberg is once again a lot of fun playing the tough guy and has no problem with this. Crowe appears to be having fun with the less than serious role and Zeta-Jones gets a couple nice scenes along the way. I thought Pepper is the one who really stood out playing the man going up against Crowe's character in the upcoming election. Tal was also a breathe of fresh air when she's on screen. An almost unrecognizable Griffin Dunne also plays a supporting part. Director Allen Hughes does a nice job at keeping the film moving at a nice pace but there's still no question that the material just isn't all that strong. I'm not sure if there were countless re-writes or not but the screenplay pretty much hits on every cliché that this lower-quality political thrillers do. The twists and turns aren't all that shocking and neither is the ending. Still, BROKEN CITY remains enjoyable thanks to the cast.

Greetings again from the darkness. The best Political crime dramas are complex films with multiple intersecting sub-plots, filled with stylish mis-direction and intense wordplay and back-stabbing between good guys and bad. What doesn't work is obvious. Especially obvious to the point where the audience is way ahead of the earnest, but clumsy protagonist. Luckily for director Allen Hughes (working solo without his brother Albert for the first time), he has stacked the film with a wonderful cast which makes it somewhat entertaining despite its major flaws.

Mark Wahlberg plays (what else?) a streetwise guy/cop/detective who tries to do the right thing but always seems to end up with the short straw. Russell Crowe is in fine form as the megalomaniac NYC mayor who plays dirty, but knows how to sell his stuff to the people ... even as he schemes to do great wrong. Their paths cross twice and neither time turns out so great for Wahlberg.

As for the rest of the cast, Barry Pepper is miscast as Crowe's mayoral opponent; Jeffrey Wright is intriguing as the Police Commissioner seemingly playing both sides against the middle; Catherine Zeta-Jones is Crowe's most unhappy and disloyal wife; Kyle Chandler plays Pepper's campaign manager (and evidently more); and Griffin Dunne is a rich Crowe supporter and knee deep in the evil scheme. Also interesting is Alona Tai as Wahlberg's wise-cracking assistant.

While no details will be spilled here, there is a fun exchange during the debate between Crowe and Pepper, and well, the movie is just at its best when Crowe is on screen. Wahlberg's character is pretty much the same he has played a dozen times prior, but it seems the real issue is with first time screenwriter Brian Tucker. He is just overrun with ideas and because of that, most go undeveloped. A script clean-up from a screen veteran could have turned this one around. Still, if you have seen all the Oscar nominated films and are looking for a watchable January release, you could do worse. Just try not to think too much!

I give this a five for the cast, but a two for the obtuse and predictable script, which inexplicably appeared on the Black List of best unproduced scripts -- in which category it should have remained. In development hell for years, it should at the very least have undergone a major rewrite to simplify the story (which wanders all over the place and becomes dumber by the minute) and raised the tone up out of the gutter. Whichever studio execs placed this on the Black List need to stop sniggering over the dirty words and earn their money by figuring out just what constitutes a good script. Wahlberg is always a pleasure to spend time with but the phoniness of so many of the scenes and the clunkiest car chase ever defeat even his efforts to entertain. So much of this movie is predictable and so many scenes are actors simply going through their paces with inferior material. The gorgeous, gorgeous Catherine Zeta Jones is totally wasted in this piece of dreck. Somewhere in this movie there may originally have been a good idea about corruption in the city. Unfortunately nobody appears to have had the courage to grab it by the throat, beat it into shape and present it to the public with any wit, style or originality. Like it says in the header, this is painting by numbers.

***SPOILERS*** Dirty & sleazy New York City politics at its worse is depicted in the movie "Broken City" with ex-cop and now bedroom dick private eye Billy Taggert, Mark Wahlberg, being hired by NYC Mayor Hostetler, Russell Crowe, to investigate his sexy wife, that he's estranged from, Cathleen, Catherine Zeta-Jones, to see if she' having an illicit affair that can hurt his chances of being re-elected.

As it turns out Taggart uncovers a number of secret meetings that Cathleen has been having with non other then Paul Andrews, Kyle Chandler, who just happens to be his opponent in the mayoral race out of state and accused carpetbagger Jack Valliant, Barry Pepper. Valliant has been peppering his campaign with stories that Mayor Hostetler has been involved with a Donald Trump like building mogul who's trying to grab the Bolton Village Project and displace its 37,000 middle income inhabitants replacing it with high rise luxury condos!

As it soon turned out that the Mayor has an ace up his sleeve that he's using to keep Taggart on a short lease and under his control that has to do with a shooting that he was involved seven years ago in gunning down suspected rapist and all around low life Mikey Tavarez, Louis Tolentino, that cost him has job as a New York City policeman. It's when Taggart found out that he's been used by Mayor Hostetler to not really find out who his wife was having an affair with but to have Paul Anbdrews set up for a hit to keep him from talking, about the truth behind the Bolton Village Project, that everything about this entire plan fell into place. Now faced with a murder charge hanging over his head in the Tavarez shooting that Mayor Hostetler has video proof of Taggart seems helpless to expose him. That's unless he's willing to face the consequences that goes along with it!

***MAJOR SPOILERS*** The movie shows just how sleazy and corrupt people in power really are going as far as murder to keep the truth about their actions from being exposed. Taggart who wasn't all that clean himself at least woke up and smelled the coffee in what he was now involved in and it stunk to high heaven. With nothing to lose but his freedom Taggart did in the end the right thing which at least cleared his consciences of not going along with Mayor Hostetler's cover up of both his connections to Andrews' murder but also the Bolton Village Project as well. Which had him end up being a cell-mate with Billy Taggart in Sing Sing Prison!

Broken City is not an unwatchable movie, but it's not a great movie either. A standard, run-of- the-mill political thriller about corrupt politicians and the private eye caught in the middle of it all, is elevated by the turns of Mark Wahlberg and Russell Crowe, but the script itself is bland and a little too on the nose for it to ever be believable or emotionally involving. When a character is flat-out telling you everything about their backstory, rather than letting you piece it together through visuals and subtext, that's when you know the script doesn't always work. Even still, there are good moments to be found here and there, but there's nothing about this movie that's any different than any similar movie ever released, and most of those do everything a lot better. Want my advice, watch Serpico or All the President's Men instead.

I give Broken City a 6 out of 10!