Film Review: "Broken City" (2013)After splitting with his twin brother Albert Hughes, with whom he started out directing in 1992 at an age of just twenty delivering a powerful boys-in-the-hood-study "Menace II Society" (1993), Director Allen Hughes takes on a needlessly written original script by Brian Tucker, which attracted two major Hollywood actors Russell Crowe and Mark Wahlberg to confront each other in the Mayor's office of New York City unwinding a story of false moves, living lies and a fulfilling redemption theme for the character of Billy Taggart (Wahlberg), who started out as NYPD detective and ending up as private investigator, losing everything he stands for in just seven years of his life before being able to prove foul play and corruption between the walls of City Hall, under the active support by chief inspector Carl Fairbanks, portrayed in dignified manner by Jeffrey Wright; in an unsatisfying showdown confrontation between the character of Billy Taggart and Mayor Hostetler, performed by even more energy-spreading Russell Crowe, who seemed to have been up for a major scene in recent motion picture history with Mark Wahlberg, which unfortunately could not been pin pointed by Director Allen Hughes, who leaves an unless capable cinematographer Ben Seresin in encircling Steadicam motions for the off-setting scene between the opponents in the first Act of the movie to come to an total halt for the resolution scene in Act 3, which takes place again in an unimaginatively office interior designed by Tom Duffield, who could not connect to former neo-noir extravaganza as art director for Tim Burton's Edward Scissorhands (1990) or even years later as production designer for Director Gore Verbinski's remake of "The Ring" in 2002; leaving "Broken City" in an unrepeatable constellation of ready-to-go actors, who actually still save the movie to be a total fall-out, thanks additionally to Catherine Zeta-Jones and Barry Pepper; a further undecided director, who hardly finds his stand-alone signature after the brother's departure from "The Book of Eli" (2010) by for example just letting the leads improvise to a maximum of full frontal confrontations in closed up sets; nail-biting producers, all up front Arnon Milchan, who needed to keep going fast off to the next picture to not lose a streak of otherwise selling seat-filling movies; keeping "Broken City" in remains as the movie directed by Allen Hughes in limbo of mediocrity with the final twist to wish for.© 2017 Felix Alexander Dausend (Cinemajesty Entertainments LLC)

You wouldn't miss a thing, if you miss this movie. Even Mark Wahlberg and Russell Crowe don't help. Yeah, good actors are in the cast, so what!? Story line doesn't go beyond being a mediocre, another corruption story with some action here and there...Sometimes I even lost track of what's going on, because it wasn't written well, I guess.Nothing new to offer... Nothing interesting... No exceptional acting...I don't even have anything else to say really to finish up this review... I wish IMDb didn't have this rule to finish up a review for certain numbers of lines. When it's a waste of time to watch the movie, it's even harder to write a review about it.

Honestly, I have never seen a film starring Mark Wahlberg where I could say he was bad. As always, he performs excellently, as do all the rest of the cast. However, the storyline of the film isn't great and it can be hard to comprehend at times throughout. The reason for this is because it can be a bit jumpy going from one thing to another and not really making an awful lot of sense to the audience as well. There were no moments in the film that had me on the edge of my seat or shouting at the TV, which instantly tell me it was in no way thrilling or exciting. The only reason this film is watchable is because of the fine performances of the cast members and that is why it deserves a six, due to their hard work!

Mark Wahlberg has been making some really good choices recently in terms of films. The Fighter, for example, stands out as a great choice for him. Russell Crowe, well, he was in Les Miserables which did well despite his singing. Somehow, these two read the script for the painfully boring Broken City and decided this was the film they wanted to make.In what would normally be wrapped up in an hour on Law and Order, Wahlberg plays Billy Taggart, an ex-cop turned Private Eye who is hired by the mayor (Russell Crowe) to spy on his cheating wife (Catherine Zeta-Jones). Only, Wahlberg isn't any ex-cop, he has a sketchy background where he may-or-may-not have executed someone in cold blood. And the wife? Well, she may-or-may-not be cheating on the mayor with someone (Kyle Chandler) from his opponent's (Barry Pepper) campaign. Of course, this is on of those films where nothing is as it seems, but everything is exactly as it seems, and you see everything coming a mile away. This is a redemption story for Billy, above all else.Again, this plot could have been wrapped up in one episode with Law and Order. The almost two hour runtime feels needlessly unnecessary, as you find Wahlberg over investigating a plot that was obvious to you thirty minutes ago. He comes across as the least competent detective in New York, and Crowe seems to be sleepwalking through his role as the mayor, mainly because he has very little to do except play the obvious villain. Zeta Jones doesn't offer much as the wife, and she honestly seems a little 'big' for her part, considering how little she's on screen. The direction from Allen Hughes, who has offered us more in the past (Menace II Society) just seems like an average TV director on an episode of NCIS. Competent, but bland.This isn't anything new, it doesn't bring anything exciting to the table or the genre. This 'Broken City' seems like every other city you've seen before, except this detective could benefit from knowing he was in a movie. Maybe then, he'd be able to jump ahead to the ending, and save us all an hour of our lives.