Broken City

Broken City

2013
Crime/neo-Film Noir
3.0 stars out of 5

As I watched this movie, I almost stopped after the first third and wrote a scathing review. I thought it should be re-named Cliché City or Dumb and Dumber III. But for even so inept a movie, I thought that it was inept of me to not watch the entire movie. So, I slogged on, and was surprised in the second act, and even more so in the final act.

Like so many, I loved “Chinatown” and then later “L.A. Confidential”, and when I saw this movie’s description and that it starred Russell Crowe and Mark Wahlberg, I thought great, a new Film Noir with two excellent actors. As I note above, the first act quickly disabused me of that idea. Crowe, an actor I greatly admire (see for example The Insider) plays sleazy Mayor Hostetler in a manner so over the top; I kept asking myself, is this intentional? How could he so overact this part? Wahlberg plays (and very well I might add) Billy Taggart, a disgraced and humbled former detective hired by the mayor to investigate the mayor’s wife Cathleen, played by Catherine Zeta-Jones. Billy stumbles along taking pictures and not understanding a thing. Billy is so not paying attention, and after one too many dead giveaways that all is not as it seems, you start wonder how Billy ever graduated from Grade School let alone made it to detective.

However, as the movie progressed, it pulled me in. There are no big twists by movie’s end that could not be seen from a mile away, but it does have a satisfactory story arc and an acceptable ending. The other reason to watch is to catch another performance by Jeffery Wright (currently stealing the show on HBO’s Boardwalk Empire as Dr. Narcisse) as he plays the police commissioner working for whom? This latter point is the one part of the movie that kept me watching – I was never sure until the end in this character’s case.

No graphic violence, but mature themes keep this one for the adults.