Broken City
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation | Release Date: January 18, 2013 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
49
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 38 Critic Reviews
Positive:
10
Mixed:
24
Negative:
4
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
83
Film.comStephanie ZacharekFeb 26, 2013
If Broken City – the first film to be directed solo by Allen Hughes, one-half of the Hughes Brothers directing team – is a little flawed and cracked itself, it still squeaks by as a reasonably thoughtful piece of big-screen entertainment. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaJan 17, 2013
Wahlberg does what Wahlberg does, bringing muscular conviction to his troubled, tough-guy role. The city may be broken, but the movie star's formula is working fine. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperJan 16, 2013
It's pretty trashy and sometimes stupid. But there was never a moment when I wasn't entertained on one level or another. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)Bilge EbiriJan 18, 2013
It is a movie that's alive in its own way, and a welcome surprise in a genre sorely lacking in them of late. Read full review
70
The New York TimesManohla DargisJan 17, 2013
Hughes visual choices can feel borrowed and clichéd, but his regard for beauty often compensates for his blunders, as does the sturdy, reliable appeal of another story of good and evil, men and women, light and dark, glass and steel, sex and power. As it turns out, there are eight million and one stories in the naked city. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleLeah ChurnerJan 16, 2013
Hughes creates a white-knuckle scene from a mayoral debate about zoning policy. You could've heard a Skittle drop in the packed house screening I attended. That, and Broken City's terrifyingly realistic car chase – another throwback to vintage Hughes – are alone worth the price of admission. Read full review
67
Entertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanJan 16, 2013
The truth is that we're way past being outraged by these sorts of Crimes of the One Percent, not because they don't happen, but because the real version is so much more interesting. Read full review
63
McClatchy-Tribune News ServiceRoger MooreJan 30, 2013
Director Allen Hughes ("The Book of Eli") hides the secrets well and stages a good fight and chase. But what's most entertaining about Brian Tucker's script is the lived-in feel it has. Read full review
63
Washington PostStephanie MerryJan 17, 2013
Overall, this is an entertaining diversion. Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsJan 17, 2013
For an hour or so, aided by the autumnal glow of Ben Seresin's cinematography, director Hughes maintains a firm handle on the story's turnabouts. Then the script goes a little nuts with coincidence and improbability. Read full review
60
Total FilmKevin HarleyFeb 9, 2013
Broken? Not quite, but certainly damaged. City offers star power, dashes of dazzle and plenty of movie nods. But Hughes’ thriller fails to locate a life of its own. Read full review
60
Time OutA.A. DowdJan 22, 2013
Broken City never asks its gumshoe to repent for the blood on his own hands, and the anticorruption - but pro-vigilantism - ethics here are especially murky. Read full review
60
NPRMark JenkinsJan 18, 2013
As an investigation into American municipal corruption, Broken City is, well, damaged. But as an opportunity for hard-boiled types to trade threats, blows and caustic banter, this modern-day noir works reasonably well. Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubNathan RabinJan 16, 2013
In spite of some punchy scenes, crackling dialogue, and fine performances, Broken City is hopelessly overmatched. It has Academy Award dreams, but a detective-show heart. Read full review
50
ObserverRex ReedJan 22, 2013
Ultimately, everyone in the movie is wasted, including Catherine Zeta-Jones, who provides great eye candy but has nothing important to say or do. Most of the roles are so ambiguous you end up scratching your head in the final reel, and some of the loose ends are so irrelevant they seem to have ended up on the cutting-room floor. With Russell Crowe, it really helps if you can read lips. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam LaceyJan 21, 2013
Performances, over all, are a mixed bag; Zeta-Jones does a fair, if incongruous, impersonation of a forties vamp, while Chandler and Pepper do well with limited screen time. As usual, Wright, as a Machiavellian police commissioner, transcends so-so-material to establish himself as the most complex character in the film. Read full review
50
Miami HeraldConnie OgleJan 21, 2013
If nothing else, Broken City manages to pull off a difficult feat: It's too convoluted to follow and simultaneously too simplistic to be believed. Read full review
50
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerJan 18, 2013
Directed by Allen Hughes and written by Brian Tucker, the film is a collection of crime noir oddments that don't add up to a full meal. Read full review
50
New York PostLou LumenickJan 17, 2013
To put it as positively as possible, there's never a dull moment in this flick - and that's not something you can take for granted at this time of the year. At the same time, though, there's rarely a believable moment in the script. Read full review
50
USA TodayClaudia PuigJan 17, 2013
It tries to be a moody thriller, but cliched dialogue and too many coincidences make for a predictable and hackneyed film. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleJan 17, 2013
It's never boring, but it lacks a cumulative impact. Read full review
50
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliJan 17, 2013
Whether the core flaw lies in the script or is the result of overly aggressive editing, the final result is offers only sporadic glimpses of the compelling thriller Broken City fails to evolve into. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeTy BurrJan 17, 2013
As the implausibilities and conspiracies and double-crosses pile up, Broken City paints itself into a corner. A plot can be confusing as long as the filmmakers themselves don't seem confused, but that's not the case here. Read full review
50
Portland OregonianM. E. RussellJan 17, 2013
Quality-wise, the crime drama Broken City lives in a frustrating mid-range area: It's too complex and competently crafted to dismiss as junk -- but it's also nowhere near sharp enough to work as the serious grown-up detective movie it clearly wants to be. Read full review
50
SlateDana StevensJan 17, 2013
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. Read full review
50
Village VoiceScott FoundasJan 17, 2013
Broken City slogs through such fatigued plot "twists" as having one character confess to another without realizing he's being recorded. The actors look generally unhappy to be here, most of all Crowe, who seems even more miserable than he did in "Les Misérables." Read full review
50
Slant MagazineAndrew SchenkerJan 17, 2013
Allen Hughes may suggest an air of pretty menace, but he does little to make the sequence work as a legible genre scene. Read full review
50
VarietyJustin ChangJan 16, 2013
Competent but juiceless New York melodrama, an unpersuasive marriage of head-slamming action and middling civic intrigue that treats issues like gay rights and public housing as red herrings rather than actual talking points. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyJan 16, 2013
Would have made for a fine film noir 60 years ago but feels rather contrived and unbelievable in the setting of contemporary New York. Read full review
42
The PlaylistDrew TaylorJan 17, 2013
There are filmmakers who are able to weave social commentary through the arena of big budget entertainment, without having it come across as lopsided or boring; Allen Hughes, it turns out, is not one of these filmmakers. Read full review
40
EmpireDavid HughesFeb 25, 2013
If this ‘power corrupts’ potboiler had been made in the 1990s — with, say, Andy Garcia, Gene Hackman and Kim Basinger — it would already have felt old-fashioned. Forget it, Jake, it’s no "Chinatown." Read full review
40
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottJan 18, 2013
Not only did Hughes shoot a handful of prominent scene-setting exteriors in the Big Apple itself, but he does an exceptional job of camouflaging his New Orleans scenes. Read full review
40
Los Angeles TimesBetsy SharkeyJan 17, 2013
Nothing clicks, nothing resonates, everything's broken. Read full review
40
New York Daily NewsElizabeth WeitzmanJan 17, 2013
There is no urgency, and little honesty, to the convoluted goings-on unfolding here. Read full review
38
Rolling StonePeter TraversJan 17, 2013
Another January dud. Broken City drops hot-shot actors in a quicksand of clichés and watches them sink. Read full review
30
TimeRichard CorlissJan 21, 2013
So Broken City stokes a lot of hopes. Too bad for all of us, the makers and the watchers alike, that it's a grimy botch. Read full review
30
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternJan 17, 2013
The only reason to see this dreary parade of deception and venality is Mark Wahlberg's performance as a disgraced ex-cop caught up in the thick of menacing events he can't understand. It's striking how this tightly focused actor can find his own firmly grounded reality in the falsest of surroundings. Read full review
30
Arizona RepublicRandy CordovaJan 17, 2013
There are plot twists galore, but they unfold in ham-fisted fashion, as if the screenwriter (newbie Brian Tucker) didn't know how to layer the mystery. Instead, the movie simply drops these secrets out of nowhere, in clunky fashion. Read full review
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