All-star cast can't salvage script

MOVIE REVIEW: While Broken City can in no way be classified as a broken movie, it does sometime near the brink of falling apart on the spot.

Inelegantly cluttered storytelling is the major bugbear. The filmmakers often have no choice but to resort to corny old cliches, simply to clear the decks on behalf of confused viewers.

At the core of the film is a familiar clash between very familiar stereotypes.

Russell Crowe (groomed hair, generous girth and groovy glasses) is the most corrupt Mayor in the Greater New York region. This pudgy pollie is close to pulling off the biggest bent deal of his career.

Mark Wahlberg (such a man of the streets he'd show up on your car's GPS navigation screen) is the last honest ex-cop-turned-private-investigator in the Big Apple.

He starts the movie on the Mayor's payroll. By the halfway mark, he's well on the way to becoming the next entry on the Mayor's to-kill list.

If you're intrigued in any way by this boilerplate premise, then you're going to be mighty thankful that actors of the calibre of Crowe and Wahlberg are there to turn up the heat when needed.

Both give the vibe they're a lot better than the material they're working with, and weirdly enough, this mildly disguised arrogance works to the advantage of Broken City.

Others in the cast have a distinctly tougher time of it. Barry Pepper, playing Mayor Rusty's clean-skin opponent in a looming election, fights a losing battle with the film's screwy narrative logic.

The leading female characters fare even worse. Catherine Zeta-Jones (as Crowe's understandably neglected spouse) and Natalie Martinez (as Wahlberg's missus, a wanna-be actress) come across as little more than living, breathing plot devices.

Overall, Broken City is an industriously aimless thriller, scurrying up and down the corridors of power, looking for any way out. If it is escape you are after, best be patient, and don't get your hopes up unless it's Crowe and Wahlberg picking the locks.

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Broken City [MA15+]

Rating: 2.5/5

Director: Allen Hughes (The Book of Eli)

Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Russell Crowe, Catherine Zeta-Jones

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