Broken City

Directed by Allen Hughes

(R)

**

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This star-studded political thriller “plays like a 21st-century B-movie,” said Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times. “It’s pretty trashy and sometimes stupid,” but there’s never a moment when you won’t be “entertained on one level or another.” Mark Wahlberg is solid as a flawed ex–New York City cop who gets in over his head when he’s hired to find out if the mayor’s wife is having an affair, and a hammy Russell Crowe is “pretty great” as the corrupt mayor. Yet despite all the talent involved, the film can’t hide its abundant weaknesses, said Claudia Puig in USA Today. “Few, if any, of the characters are believable,” and the plot twists are “fairly guessable.” Broken City’s piecemeal pleasures might keep you satisfied until its last 20 minutes, said Mick LaSalle in the San Francisco Chronicle. As the mayor’s wife, Catherine Zeta-Jones is “stunning,” for instance. She’s “at least as beautiful as she was at 28, but with a maturity, a directness, and a rueful wisdom that are new.” But the various plotlines never amount to anything. “Just as some movies are more than the sum of their parts, this one is less.”