When an adult man and an adult woman take separate trains for a clandestine meet-up at a beach house on Montauk where they close the drapes and consume wine, it’s fair to guess they’re having a sexual liaison. Don’t feign holier-than-thou innocence here. In fact, chiding us viewers for assuming such is positively revolting. We’re the bad guy? Really? You can exchange information via phone, fax, e-mail, post office. There it is – just as anonymous, just as clandestine, but with so little of the hassle. But meeting on-the-fly at a remote beach house is just business. Yeah, ok.
Cop Billy (Marky Mark) makes the right move in the wrong way – kills a murderer-rapist in cold blood. It’s a crime that screams out for mixed messages to ensue. And ensue, they do: Mayor Hostetler (Russell Crowe) puts pressure to let Billy walk, but his days as a cop are over. The public wants his head, but the rape-victim-sister becomes Marky’s special fun girl. FF seven years. Marky Mark, P.I. has a failing business. *poof* The Mayor appears with a lucrative job for Billy the dick. And before you can say, “convenient plot point,” Billy goes a huntin’ for mayor’swifetryst. But ooooooooh, he gets more than he bargained for doesn’t he? Catherine Zeta-Jones plays the wife of Mayor Hostetler. She has pretty much the same relationship (outward supportive, inward hostility) with he as Susan Sarandon had with Richard Gere in Arbitrage. When hubby is the BMo(NY)C, I suppose this kind of relationship is common. I have 
no idea, actually, but it’s pretty common in films like this.
And “like this” is the Broken City mantra. I’m sure the greenlit package was destined for greatness – Crowe! Wahlberg! Zeta-Jones! NYC! Corruption! And then the result happened, which looks a great deal like City Hall and Arbitrage and half-a-dozen other forgettable big city abuse-of-power films. Broken City is one of those blah films that appears in Six Degrees games as a convenient link between actors like Barry Pepper and Jeffrey Wright. I imagine a biographer taking on Wahlberg thirty years in the future, asking questions like, “what was that film you made after Ted? Something about a NYC detective?” And Mark himself drawing a blank.
The other Broken City broken record is the twist. Gotta be a twist or you’d never get Russell to play mayor. And I’m sure it was just so insightful … if only I could remember what it was. I don’t have a twist so much as a curtail.
Marky Mark shot a perp
Shucks, he just ain’t Wyatt Earp.
Russell Crowe proved most kind
With his big fat beautiful … mind
Years later, cash Mark bleeds.
Gladi-mayor knows what he needs.
“Spy on my wife, she’s doin’ the nasty.”
What Mark sees can be catastroph-sty
What is the truth? Is there a tryst?
I guarantee there will be a twist.
Facts arise, Marky Mark can’t ignore.
A-mayor-i-Crowe’s a crook? We’re shocked* to the core.
*shocked, I tell you!
Rated R, 109 Minutes
D: Allen Hughes
W: Bryan Tucker
Genre: Abuse of power
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Poli-sci novices
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Cynics
