Whether in acclaimed dramas such as The Departed or The Fighter or adult comedies like Ted, Mark Wahlberg knows his talent lies in playing an East Coast blue-collar worker with a foul mouth, winning smile and barely-concealed temper. In the right movie he brings an authentic hardscrabble grit. In the wrong movie, the Wahlbergian shtick can merely feel like the work of an actor on autopilot.

Broken City is an overwritten, uninvolving crime thriller with Wahlberg as a disgraced cop-turned-private investigator. He’s embroiled in a series of nonsensical twists and convolutions when he agrees to investigate Catherine Zeta Jones, the underwritten wife of the venomous mayor played by a scenery-chewing Russell Crowe.
Subplots involving Wahlberg’s troubled relationship and his struggle with alcoholism are initially given weighty coverage, only to be inexplicably abandoned. Kyle Chandler, Barry Pepper and Jeffrey Wright get bit parts as an enigmatic campaign manager, idealistic politician and morally ambiguous cop, but their solid performances are wasted in the ultimately tangential roles. Even the setting feels inauthentic, with New York replaced by an unconvincing but inexpensive New Orleans.