Broken City

Suspenseful thrillers are a genre that can be very intriguing, if treated with a tight script and familiar faces putting themselves or someone else in harms way. This genre is certainly one that Mark Wahlberg has become very familiar with. One can look at some of his films and ponder: "Fear", last year's "Contraband", the remake of "The Italian Job" to name some. So when he decided to star and produce "Broken City", it should not have been a surprise by anyone that he would continue in this familiar territory.

In a city rife with injustice, ex-cop Billy Taggart (Wahlberg) seeks redemption and revenge after being double-crossed and then framed by its most powerful figure: Mayor Nicholas Hostetler (Russell Crowe). Billy's relentless pursuit of justice, matched only by his streetwise toughness, makes him an unstoppable force--and the Mayor's worst nightmare.
It goes back to when Billy was charged with a possible murder of a criminal while on duty, the Mayor along with Commissioner Carl Fairbanks (Jeffrey Wright) gets the charges dropped. Seven years pass, and Billy is now a private detective. He gets a call from the Mayor's office for a job. The job is: he wants Billy to follow his wife Cathleen (Catherine Zeta-Jones) whom he believes is having an affair, and with this being an election year, this is all he needs. He wants pictures so he can take care of the situation once and for all, however this is really all a ruse in order to conduct some other corrupt business using Billy, of course, without Billy's knowledge. What is he up to, and how does this end up being linked to Billy and his past?

Others to round out the cast are Barry Pepper as Jack Valliant, a rival candidate for Mayor, Alona Tal as Katy Bradshaw, Billy's assistant in his private detective work, Natalie Martinez as Natalie Barrow, Billy's girlfriend, Kyle Chandler as Paul Andrews, Valliant's campaign manager, Michael Beach as Tony Jansen, James Ransone as Todd Lancaster, and Griffin Dunne as Sam Lancaster, Todd's Dad.

This was frenetically directed by Allen Hughes of The Hughes Brothers ("Menace II Society" (as The Hughes Bros.) '93, "Dead Presidents" (as The Hughes Bros.) '95, "American Pimp" (Documentary) '99, "From Hell" (as The Hughes Bros.) '01, "Touching Evil" (TV movie) '04, "Knights of the South Bronx" (TV movie) '05, "New York, I Love You" (segment "Allen Hughes") '09, "The Book of Eli" (as The Hughes Bros.) '10). Hughes was very adept at slowly building intensity with each and every frame. Considering this was Brian Tucker's first theatrical film, this was actually written well. But, like any newbie, there were a few places where the cohesiveness was just a bit off and took a little bit of time to really take off.

If you're a Wahlberg or Crowe fan, you'll feel right at home here, but if you're looking for an incredibly tight script with truly delineated characters, you'll be looking only realizing that someone didn't get the memo.

Out of 4 Stars: 2.5                            Rated: R                              108mins.