I admire Russell Crowe for his range and depth of feeling. Between 1995 and 2005, he was responsible for a string of powerhouse films, including L.A. Confidential and Cinderella Man. However, in 2006, he starred in A Good Year which ignited a chain reaction of multiple failures. Broken City merely adds to the malaise.

With compositions stressing vertical shapes, the film offers a glimpse of an idea, strenuously pushed into being by writer Brian Tucker. We get a small showing from Crowe, yet he's far from transcendent. He plays Mayor Nicholas Hostetler, a man in the running for re-election who suspects that his wife Cathleen (Catherine Zeta-Jones) may be having an affair. He wants proof. To get it, he hires former cop turned private investigator Billy Taggart (Mark Wahlberg) to obtain photographic evidence.

I doubt anyone who sees Broken City will remember it the next day. The film drones on with the speed of a carthorse. A sub-plot involving a movie premiere bogs down the pace of the story. Although Crowe, Wahlberg and Zeta-Jones are stars, they leave their bag of tricks at home.

Allen Hughes directs with all the subtlety and technique of a novice painter. He doesn't shoot with editing in mind. As such, there's no visual follow through. Even when the camera lingers on something important, we need dialogue to clarify the storytelling.

The acting hollows out after about twenty five minutes. It's so underplayed, the result feels emotionally invisible. The only individual who holds it together may be Jeffrey Wright. He seems composed when others lose the plot.

I have noticed a disheartening trend in modern thrillers. Attempts to add twist upon twist simply confuses the issue. State of Play functioned in much the same way. Things happen with no intellectual consequence. Yet building up the narrative flow to incorporate greater focus on specific incidents could be one way of solving the problem. I get the feeling though that no amount of nip/tuck treatment would do much good for a production like Broken City. If the camera runs out of things to say, the filmmaker loses a valuable weapon in the fight against non-expression. Unfortunately, the film becomes another casualty of its own lack of imagination. 

(Released by 20th Century Fox; rated "R" by MPAA.)