Broken City Reviews
Film Racket
the screenplay, filled with hackneyed implausibilities and trite characterization, constantly lets everyone down
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/5
3AW
It is predictable procedural fodder - you can see the "twists" coming a mile away - but done with enough conviction to paper over the plot holes and cliches.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/5
Fan The Fire
It has ideas and, in places, verve, but it can't help but feel like a pretty standard thriller with some big names rather erroneously attached
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/5
Flicks.co.nz
Alarm bells started ringing when every terse exchange proved chuckle worthy.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/5
Movie Talk
A solidly old-fashioned crime thriller that ploughs the familiar furrow of cops, crooks and corruption in New York City.
Movies.com
Welcome to the broken city... where honorable anti-heroes with dark pasts can get double-crossed and mixed up with good guys who're really bad guys... where doing the right thing will put you IN TOO DEEP. It's a drag to be here.
Full Review
| Original Score: 1.5/5
The Sun Herald
Aside from feeling bemused and confused by the end, the web of deceit that's presented is not even vaguely believable.
Full Review
| Original Score: 5/10
Acting drunk looks easy but its certainly not. So when Wahlberg hits the bottle, we are treated to what must be the most laughable screen lush in cinema history.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/10
Daily Star
In the end, the cards fall roughly where you'd expect them to in a clichéd thriller.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/5
Quickflix
Broken City may break new ground when it comes to pioneering cinematic scowls, but that's the only area where the cast is able to elevate the banal material.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/5
Scotsman
The results are as jaded and dull as Crowe's performance.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/5
Observer [UK]
It's moderately enjoyable, well acted and both complicated and simplistic.
Urban Cinefile
Mark Wahlberg builds a credible and complex charaterisation as the flawed character whose route to redemption is paved with treachery. He's the best thing going for Broken City
Urban Cinefile
Excelling in the smarmy stakes, Russell Crowe is back in form as a crooked New York Mayor...
Contactmusic.com
While this thriller plays with themes of political ethics and ambition, it merely lets them simmer in the background. Director Hughes is clearly much more interested in macho posturing and the convoluted scandal-based plot.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/5
Irish Times
Wahlberg and Crowe. Together at last. So overwhelming. Can't breathe for testosterone. Can't even write complete sentences.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/5
Daily Telegraph
When it comes to long-form tales of political intrigue, television serials are fast encroaching on cinema's patch, and if this very ordinary thriller is the best Hollywood can do, it might as well cede the whole territory.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/5
This is London
When a high-powered cast like this is gathered, you have the right to expect more than mundanity.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/5
HeyUGuys
Although Broken City promises more than is ultimately delivered, it remains an easy to indulge in thriller.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/5
Daily Express
It doesn't really ring true but it's fun and well performed.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/5
