Movie Review: Broken City
What We Liked
What We Didn't Like
Mark Wahlberg’s new film Broken City is, in a word, broken. There is so much left unsaid as well as unfinished in this movie, the audience is left with way too much to fill in the blanks. There are problems with open-ended romances. There are problems with insinuated relationships that may or may not have been gay and who really cares if they are anyway. There are definite problems with the ending. Overall, as much as you may enjoy Wahlberg, the story-line is so disappointing, Broken City is left in pieces.
The story begins with Billy Taggart (Wahlberg) a New York cop having just shot and killed a rapist/killer that had been released on a technicality. Billy is then put on trial for this crime and is found innocent only because Mayor Hostetler (Russell Crowe) has kept a witness to the shooting quiet. Although Billy is found innocent, he is forced into early retirement by police commissioner Carl Fairbanks (Jeffrey Wright). Seven years later Taggart is working as a private detective with his primary cases consisting of exposing would-be cheating spouses. Taggart is in a long-time romance with Natalie Barrow (Natalie Martinez) whom just happens to be a rising star and sister to the woman killed by the rapist Taggart shot.
With Billy’s business struggling, he and his assistant Katy (Alona Tal) go about trying to collect all the past due monies owed them, in the midst of this they receive a call from incumbent Mayor Hostetler requesting to see Billy. The Mayor is running neck and neck in the upcoming election against Jack Valliant (Barry Pepper). Hostetler has a very strong feeling that his wife (Catherine Zeta-Jones) is having an affair, and wants to have her investigated before his opposition finds out, or is there another motive? The Mayor offers Billy fifty thousand dollars to pull up some dirt on his wife. The proposal is half now and the rest when the job is finished. In Billy’s investigation, he does come across Mrs. Hostetler spending time with a most un-likely love interest. When he informs the Mayor of his findings he then begins to learn that maybe this investigation isn’t as open and shut as it first seemed.
Mark Wahlberg in “Broken City.” Photo by Barry Wetcher SMPSP – © 2012 – Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All rights reserved.
The “brokenness” begins with Taggart’s relationship with Natalie. The writers had you thinking that this relationship was lasting. But it doesn’t and there is no closure. Then you are lead to believe there is something going on with his assistant Katy. But is there? Can’t be sure, she seems to be there for him “every time,” as she states on more than one occasion. But ultimately the story ends and no one knows. It is insinuated that Jack Valliant and his campaign manager might be in a homosexual relationship that somehow would be applicable to this movie, but then again…nobody really knows for sure, and I am certain that is of no consequence to the overall story. Another disturbing relationship is the one between Taggart and Commissioner Fairbanks. It’s thought pretty early on that Fairbanks is not a fan of Billy. The next thing you know Billy is helping torture people to help get info for Fairbanks. What? I will give points to Russell Crowe; he played a New York Mayor to perfection. Catherine Zeta-Jones also plays a perfect scorned wife. Wahlberg is predictable and actually quite boring. Yes, Broken City is indeed a broken movie.
Betsy Cizek
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