Greetings again from the darkness. The best Political crime dramas are complex films with multiple intersecting sub-plots, filled with stylish mis-direction and intense wordplay and back-stabbing between good guys and bad. What doesn't work is obvious. Especially obvious to the point where the audience is way ahead of the earnest, but clumsy protagonist. Luckily for director Allen Hughes (working solo without his brother Albert for the first time),he has stacked the film with a wonderful cast which makes it somewhat entertaining despite its major flaws.

Mark Wahlberg plays (what else?) a streetwise guy/cop/detective who tries to do the right thing but always seems to end up with the short straw. Russell Crowe is in fine form as the megalomaniac NYC mayor who plays dirty, but knows how to sell his stuff to the people ... even as he schemes to do great wrong. Their paths cross twice and neither time turns out so great for Wahlberg.

As for the rest of the cast, Barry Pepper is miscast as Crowe's mayoral opponent; Jeffrey Wright is intriguing as the Police Commissioner seemingly playing both sides against the middle; Catherine Zeta-Jones is Crowe's most unhappy and disloyal wife; Kyle Chandler plays Pepper's campaign manager (and evidently more); and Griffin Dunne is a rich Crowe supporter and knee deep in the evil scheme. Also interesting is Alona Tai as Wahlberg's wise-cracking assistant.

While no details will be spilled here, there is a fun exchange during the debate between Crowe and Pepper, and well, the movie is just at its best when Crowe is on screen. Wahlberg's character is pretty much the same he has played a dozen times prior, but it seems the real issue is with first time screenwriter Brian Tucker. He is just overrun with ideas and because of that, most go undeveloped. A script clean-up from a screen veteran could have turned this one around. Still, if you have seen all the Oscar nominated films and are looking for a watchable January release, you could do worse. Just try not to think too much!

Ex-Detective Mark Wahlberg has an admirer, someone no less than the Mayor of New York Russell Crowe. Wahlberg was indicted and the charges dismissed for lack of evidence that he killed Luis Tolentino, a rapist who skipped on a technicality. It may have been justice, but it was hardly legal and it cost Wahlberg his badge.

Seven years later Wahlberg is now scratching out a living as a private detective doing the kind of work that Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe did in between the novels that Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler wrote about them. Wahlberg even has an Effie like secretary in Alona Tal. Who should call but the mayor himself who wants him for a disagreeable job. He suspects his wife of infidelity and it's now election time and he has a tough race against Councilman Barry Pepper. Crowe wants to know exactly the who and where and when of his wife Catherine Zeta-Jones's rendezvous. This apparently is what Wahlberg is specializing in now.

He finds whom she's meeting with and its Kyle Chandler the campaign manager for Pepper. But believe me it's not all that it seems and soon there's murder and municipal corruption involved. And Wahlberg's own past comes back to haunt him.

Although this is a Wahlberg produced film as well, Crowe really dominates this film as one evil man who is running the Big Apple. He's the one you're thinking about throughout the film. He's your typical free enterprise capitalist who has no shame at all in ripping off the city and pocketing whatever he can. His campaign revolves around the fact that he's reduced the city deficit and turned it into a surplus. It's how he's done it that will revolt you if you have decent instincts. In fact it's revolted his wife which is why Zeta-Jones is behaving as she does.

I would also like to single out Alona Tal who must have watched The Maltese Falcon and took her cues from what Lee Patrick did as Humphrey Bogart's secretary. Both those women liked their bosses and you hope the two would realize that.

Broken City is a good action story and Wahlberg producer gave Wahlberg actor a great vehicle. I think Mark's fans will enjoy this and others will as well.

I'm not sure why this was a bomb at the box office, because I thought it was pretty decent. It's a New York-set conspiracy thriller starring the underrated Mark Wahlberg as a private detective who soon becomes embroiled in a new case involving the city's Mayor (played with sleazy relish by Russell Crowe) and his cheating wife, Catherine Zeta-Jones.

BROKEN CITY avoids the usual clichés of the genre for the most part, and it's almost entirely action-free; there are no fight scenes here and only a couple of shots are fired throughout. It's far from boring, though; the political shenanigans are completely engaging, and the scriptwriter does a fine job of showing how events from the past can come back to haunt us.

I've really been enjoying Wahlberg's performances as of late (after this and CONTRABAND) and he does another good job here of playing a rather unpredictable and unlikeable character. Crowe is excellent, cast against type, and the underrated Jeffrey Wright bags a strong supporting role. BROKEN CITY is a story-focused thriller that remains tight and compelling throughout, which is why I give it a thumbs-up.