Jeanskynebu the audience applauded

BootDigest Such a frustrating disappointment

ChicRawIdol A brilliant film that helped define a genre

TrueHello Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

cinemajesty 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)

Anssi Vartiainen What really bothers me about this film is the fact that I have no idea why its story was told. What did the writer and the director see in this story that simply screamed: "Tell me! Tell me!" Or was this simply an attempt to cash in on the star power of the main leads and make some money? I mean, that's Hollywood in a nutshell, according to some, but you can usually see that at least someone cared about the final product.Broken City is simply put boring. Its story has no purpose. It has one of the most cookie cutter plots I've ever seen, its characters are achingly stereotypical, the final end twist can be seen coming kilometers away and as a whole I was never invested in what was happening.But yes, the main leads, Wahlberg and Crowe, are both very talented actors. And it is always nice to see Catherine Zeta-Jones, never let it be said I've claimed anything else. But even good actors need good scripts to allow them to shine, and in this case that simply isn't the case. And as a result you can see that even they are not really trying. They're not interested in the movie, so why should the audience be.Broken City is far from the worst movie I've ever seen. I have nothing bad to say about the production values, the natural charisma of the leads shines through, though barely, and the story, while soulless and clichéd, at least tries to be good. Making the whole movie somewhat below average, but watchable if you have to see it for one reason or another.

Adam Peters (28%) Guess what? Politics is dirty, filled with rich jerks using their heightened influence to push the rules to one side so they can do whatever they want. That's the already well known message here with zero of anything else to make this well-cast flop anything more than a limp, quite dull miss-hit. This has three actors who are more than capable to lead a film by themselves, yet this feels oddly directionless, uninteresting, and tepid. What also doesn't help is the fact that this isn't meaty enough to pass as a decent political crime drama, and its way too slow to be an action flick or a thriller. Mark Wahlberg looks a bit lost, Russell Crowe is in second gear, and Zeta-Jones's character could have been played by any actress. By the end it becomes all too clear why this lasted in cinemas for one single week only. Pity those who ventured to pay money to see it.

viewsonfilm.com Mark Wahlberg is gonna be a real busy guy this year. He's got four movies coming out and so far I've seen two of them. Although, I wasn't a fan of his April misfire entitled Pain & Gain (I just couldn't allow myself to be), I did enjoy his earlier release which was probably the first feature length film to come out in 2013. Yes I'm writing about Broken City and yes it entertained me. It's not a great movie but it is a pretty good one. I feel bad though, I mean I knew right away that it was gonna be in and out of the multiplexes faster than a speeding bullet. What you have here is a crime drama that came out in January (strike one), carries an extremely generic title (strike two), and recycles elements from so many other similar films in its respected genre (strike three). Broken City kinda reminded me of a movie that surfaced about 5 years ago (2008's Pride and Glory). Together these two pictures emulate a sort of greatest hits compilation of cinema's version of police corruption and crime. By now, I think we've pretty much seen it all before as moviegoers. But hey, there are a lot worse things you could be doing with two hours to kill than viewing a flick with one past Oscar nominee (Mark Wahlberg) and one past Oscar winner (Russell Crowe). The story goes like this: Wahlberg plays N.Y.P.D. detective Billy Taggert. He crosses the line by playing the dirty cop role (he commits a crime which I can't reveal, that would be a spoiler) and loses his job. Fast forward 7 years later and he is now moonlighting as a photographer/private eye who takes photos of people in I guess, small positions of power. He then catches them in the act of committing for example, adultery and gives this information to the related subjects who are paying for his services. On the verge of going bankrupt (business is slow), Taggert gets a sudden call from the mayor of New York City (Russell Crowe, with perfectly combed hair). Crowe's character (Nicholas Hostetler) proposition's Taggert, the opportunity to make some nice coin. Taggert has to find out if Hostetler's wife (Catherine Zeta- Jones) is cheating on him. Better yet, he has to find out who the actual dude is that's involved (this is a juicy plot point I tell you). So there it is, the gist of Broken City. Like every other three star movie it has a few flaws here and there. One flaw is that it feels overly familiar. Originality is not its strong suit. In its defense though, it's not easy to make this type of film with original ideas, better yet cut it from original cloth. Every darn police TV show or film beat Broken City to the punch. The second flaw is what this movie tries to be. While I found it entertaining and anything but boring, I felt like I was watching an episode of N.Y.P.D. Blue mixed with a dreary daytime soap. It's an interesting combo that could easily make a lot of other critics pick their jaw up off the floor. I didn't mind it though. What drew me in eventually, was the crackling scenes of dialogue between Wahlberg and Crowe's characters. They have some great chemistry between them and I hope someday they'll team up again (I won't tell you whether they become adversaries or not in this movie. That's up to you, the viewer, to find out). Along with Wahlberg and Crowe, (not to mention strong supporting work from Barry Pepper as Crowe's future re-election opponent) everyone else in the cast also does a pretty substantial job (sans Alona Tal who tries hard but looks out of place amongst the other Hollywood heavyweights).In retrospect, this isn't the type of trashy potboiler that's gonna set the world on fire. It does have solid performances, it moves at a brisk pace, and it offers a couple of nifty twists and turns. Granted, it won't have a chance come awards season but I'm sure the people who worked on it know that. On the bright side, they can feel confident that the film was edited nice and tight. This is one of the main aspects that kept me involved throughout its entire running time. Whether you view it or not (and I hope you do), Broken City gets more than enough things right. I'm certain that when the movie ends it will beg you to keep this one notion in mind: if it ain't "broken," don't fix it.