Broken City Movie Reviews

After sundown the familiar, big, beautiful, soul-dirty town in Broken City looks as if it were built from shattered glass. That’s especially true from the air, where the director, Allen Hughes, likes to take a god’s-eye measure of what’s below, the camera gliding over the glittering lights and shadows as black as the abyss. This is a place so ominous that the sun never seems to shine, leaving the grey streets and people washed in an icy-blue light

Mayor Hostetler (Russell Crowe) fears he might lose his post to rival candidate Jack Valliant (Barry Pepper). Valliant is hell-bent on exposing Hostetler's alleged real estate scams. Along with political problems, the mayor also faces marital discord. He is convinced but needs proof that will expose his wife's alleged adultery. He thus hires Billy Taggart ( Mark Wahlberg), a former cop-turned-private investigator to look into the personal life

The thing about crime drama productions is that packaging gets half the job done. Stylish violence is an absolute. Add to it a plum cast. Give them some smart lines to mouth and you have wrapped it cleverly to grab the eyeballs. Broken City does all of the above. But then, that is only half the job done. It is the other half that can be slightly more difficult for the director. How does one make a crime drama look fresh after all these years?

An unscrupulous mayor running for election can be counted on to not let his wife's infidelity stand in the way. A cop who has shot a man he believes guilty of rape in cold blood, and then acquiesced to hiding of evidence, can be counted on to look the other way. But look how surprised we are supposed to be at the chances of this happening! Broken City is a vehicle for Wahlberg, who is also the producer, in another wronged former cop-with-a-golden heart