Arts: I?m Pretty Sure I Saw Broken City the Other Day

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Movies I'm Pretty Sure I Saw Broken City the Other Day But this thriller is so generic I can't be 100 percent sure. By Dana Stevens Posted Thursday, Jan 17, 2013, at 04:19 PM ET "What was that other run-of-the-mill thriller I saw a long time ago?" I wondered as I put on my coat after the Broken City screening. "With Mark Wahlberg as a private eye and Russell Crowe as a corrupt mayor? … Oh, wait, that was this one." Broken City, the first solo directorial outing by Allen Hughes (half of the twin-brother team who made Menace II Society, From Hell, and The Book of Eli), is one of those movies that recedes in the course of its own viewing. The movie's curious capacity for self-erasure makes it a tough one to write about; less than 24 hours later, I recall it with all the clarity of something I half-watched on a plane with a hangover in 1996. This much I know: Mark Wahlberg plays Billy Taggart, an NYPD cop who's forced to retire after being acquitted in a headline-making excessive-force case. Seven years later, now the proprietor of an insolvent detective agency, Taggart is contacted by the mayor, Nicholas Hostetler (Russell Crowe), who suspects his wife, Cathleen (Catherine Zeta-Jones), of having an affair. Taggart tails the errant Mrs. Hostetler to a beach house in Montauk, where the assignation in progress goes beyond mere adultery. What the mayor learns from the photos Taggart brings him could change the course of the impending election, for which the Giuliani-esque Hostetler is currently running neck-and-neck with a more liberal, populist challenger, Jack Valliant (Barry Pepper). Like all the nonsinging parts of ABC's Nashville, Broken ... To continue reading, click here. Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum What did you think of this article? POST A MESSAGE | READ MESSAGES Also In Slate Don't Overreact to Mali (or the Hostages) The Next Second Amendment War Vouching Against Creationism	Advertisement
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