Dinesh Kamath's column on Hollywood movie 'Broken City' that was published in Newsband

Broken City is an American crime drama film directed by Allen Hughes, starring Mark Wahlberg and Russell Crowe.

The movie has an interesting plot. Former NYPD cop Billy Taggart begins following the wife of the New York City mayor, Cathleen Hostetler, and uncovers a much bigger scandal.

This movie narrates a story of one man seeking redemption in a world that has little or no forgiveness.

That man is Billy Taggart, played with blunt force by Mark Wahlberg. Seven years earlier, he was dismissed from the NYPD for shooting a rapist-killer in a questionable takedown. Now he's a private eye, forced to hound his clients for payment. He's behind in paying his canny assistant Katie (Alona Tal) and living a skimpy life with his actress wife Natalie (Natalie Martinez).

Then he gets a call from New York Mayor Nicholas Hostetler (Russell Crowe), who handled Taggart's firing and who hires him to do a job. A week before a very close election, the mayor is convinced that his wife (Catherine Zeta-Jones) is having an affair. He wants to find out who the man is before his opponent can get a hold of and use the information.

But as Billy tracks Mrs. Mayor, he uncovers something less savory than a simple adultery: a plot of corruption and betrayal that will allow developers close to the mayor to buy a public-housing project and turn it into a cash-cow high-rise development. It also includes murder and lesser crimes.

Then there is the obligatory car chase, a couple of fisticuffs moments and lot of emoting. Tucker’s take on the political push-pull between the mayor and his clean-cut challenger, the obviously named Jack Valliant (Barry Pepper), seems like so much boiler-plate.

As roguish and attractive as the mayor is supposed to be, Crowe can't do much more than reveal his shiftiness amid the bluster.

Thus Broken City is all about personal failing and political corruption. Brian Tucker's Broken City screenplay is packed with plot twists, complex sentences and the kind of innuendo that make it seem as if the movie will be a smarter-than-most thriller from the first exchanges.

Broken City is set in a modern-day New York where political corruption and police intrigue pile up like garbage during a strike. The movie proves to be a bait-and-switch of a different sort.

Allen Hughes helms Broken City solo, a new direction for him. Mark Wahlberg does traffic, weather reports on Philly TV station

Director Allen Hughes has given Broken City the look of a noir and the mayor a Prince Valiant 'do, which along with the quandaries —  and a real estate scam, a reelection campaign and a cheating wife (Catherine Zeta-Jones) keep the pot boiling. The movie talks about real-life corruption and betrayals in a new-age, techno-centric kind of way.

Though the film starts with Billy's downfall — a questionable shooting with Billy literally holding a smoking gun — it quickly shifts into his redemption phase. The story picks up a few years into it, with the former cop trying to do the right thing in a seedy business.

The bulk of his private-eyeing entails snapping compromising shots of adulterous wives. Still, he's got his integrity, his sobriety, a feisty young office manager (Alona Tal) and a beautiful girlfriend (Natalie Martinez). But he's going bankrupt all the same. An unexpected call from his old nemesis, the mayor, comes with the promise of a $50,000 payment for catching his wife in the act. It is hard to refuse, though his gut tells him he should.

In part, the problem lies in whose story this really is — Billy's or the mayor's. Since no one seems willing to make the call, the movie keeps shifting between the two — sometimes connecting the dots between them, sometimes not. It's anyone's game.

The director lets the dreary, dirty business of political ambition drag on. Crowe does pull off a political debate against his opponent, Jack Valliant (Barry Pepper), quite handily. The actor is stinging enough and winning enough in that particular face-off. Maybe Crowe needs to be a hero rather than a villain.

The film presents a different set of issues for Wahlberg. He is one of those actors so easy to like in nearly everything he does.

The film's moral turning point comes with Billy's discovery that something about his gig for the mayor doesn't smell right. It begins to haunt him, pulling up memories of his own downfall. But all the snares set along the way stop making sense. The conflict between Billy and his girlfriend, a promising actress, is interesting.

Thus the film has Mark Wahlberg as Billy Taggart, Russell Crowe as Mayor Nicholas Hostetler, Catherine Zeta-Jones as Cathleen Hostetler, Jeffrey Wright as Carl Fairbanks, Barry Pepper as Jack Valliant, Alona Tal as Kathy Bradshaw, Natalie Martinez as Natalie Barrow, Michael Beach as Tony Jansen, Kyle Chandler as Paul Andrews, James Ransone as Todd Lancaster, Griffin Dunne as Sam Lancaster and Justin Chambers as Ryan Blake.

Thus the film is a tale of political corruption, police violence, power, and greed, Broken City owes a debt to classics such as The Big Sleep, The Maltese Falcon and Chinatown.

The portion of the film that is most interesting is when Wahlberg's Billy Taggert is shown as leaving the NYPD and setting up shop as a private eye, chasing adulterous spouses, and chasing clients who haven't paid him. When the mayor calls Taggert back a few years down the line and offers the freelance detective a big check to follow his wife (Catherine Zeta-Jones), Taggert thinks he's got everything figured out. But it turns out he doesn't have a clue.

Allen Hughes' Broken City has the bones and perhaps even the DNA of a better, darker and more interesting film.

Its tale of marital discord and political in-fighting, as well as corruption and malfeasance, could have been constructed as one of those painfully compelling tales of a good man dealing with rotten doings in his own little world -- and the worry of having that rot rub off on the cleaner.

Thus director Allen Hughes has done a good job. Do watch the film Broken City. It’s a good film.