Review - Broken City (2013)

Starring Mark Wahlberg, Russell Crowe and Jeffrey Wright.
Directed by Allen Hughes.

Broken City left me with broken eyeballs. January doesn't seem to be a kind month these days for Mark Wahlberg. Last year I barely survived Contraband and now I had to suffer through this wanna-be thriller. The film begins with police officer Billy Taggart (Mark Wahlberg) in court for murder. He is however freed of charges with the help of the Mayor Hostetler (Russell Crowe) and police captain Carl Fairbanks (Jeffrey Wright).

The movie then jumps to seven years after the trial. I honestly didn't realize that the film had fast forwarded seven years until like an hour of watching-- that's how bored I was. Anyways Taggart, now an ex-cop turned private investigator is hired to carry out a job for Mayor Hostetler. Only thing is, the job turned out to be much more than he bargained for.

The acting was not horrible but the characters were too laid back so there weren't much development. Mark Wahlberg's character was not convincing as lead; I felt like more could have been done with Billy Taggart, or perhaps provide us with more backstory. Catherine Zeta- Jones character is another mystery and Jeffrey Wright's good cop/bad cop portrayal had me confused. The only remotely interesting character overall is Russell Crowe.

I found this film to be ridiculously boring. It never left its comfort zone and failed to provide me with any thrills. I found the plot to be pretty weak. The subplots even worse. Some parts just didnt make sense and didn't try to make sense. There was no momentum, no intensity so it was pretty much flat towards the ending. The last scene involving the confrontation between Russell Crowe and Mark Wahlberg is the only highlight of this film.

That seven years gap literally placed a big hole in this movie. This "Oh I did something for you, now you should do something for me" plot just didn't work for me. The director definitely got confused on whether he wanted this to be a political thriller or just a crime thriller. Broken City is one of those films you forget ten minutes after watching.

Rating: 4/10


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