Broken City (2013)
Directed by Allen Hughes
In a broken city rife with injustice, ex-cop Billy Taggart seeks redemption and revenge after being double-crossed and then framed by its most powerful figure, the mayor. Billy's relentless pursuit of justice, matched only by his streetwise toughness, makes him an unstoppable force - and the mayor's worst nightmare.
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3 films that influenced Broken City
What critics say influenced Broken City
“Broken City” squanders a way-too-good cast in a meandering, not very compelling cop-and-political corruption story that plays like a half-hearted homage to Sidney Lumet’s ’70s crime thrillers like “Serpico,” “Dog Day Afternoon” and “Prince of the City.”
Brian Tucker’s screenplay is within genuflecting distance of Serpico, Prince of the City and other gritty-good New York films directed by Sidney Lumet.
But even when they didn’t work, those movies — Serpico, Prince of the City, Power, Q & A, Night Falls on Manhattan — had an electric charge.
Director Allen Hughes doesn't stylize Broken City quite so flamboyantly as such previous efforts as From Hell and The Book of Eli (both co-directed with his brother, Albert).
Hacked out by one of the twin Hughes brothers who directed the Jack the Ripper potboiler From Hell, Allen Hughes’s Broken City is another feverish, thickly plotted, overwritten and ultimately preposterous tale of sordid New York political corruption in which nothing much rings true.
Allen Hughes is better known for the projects he’s put out alongside his brother, Albert Hughes – Menace II Society, Dead Presidents, American Pimp, From Hell, Book of Eli – and in many ways, Broken City is an experiment to see what happens when you break the pair up.
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.
As I watched him here, I kept thinking how he would have made for a better Jack Reacher than Tom Cruise as that role played more to his strengths.