Philly.com has an interview with Mark Wahlberg that goes into detail on his upcoming films with this excerpt on Broken City:
It isn’t hard, the first time Mark Wahlberg and Russell Crowe square off in Broken City, to see that the two stars are enjoying themselves mightily. Wahlberg is a New York cop asked to resign in the wake of a controversial shooting, and Crowe is the mayor asking for his badge. They meet in the mayor’s City Hall office – it’s a tense, tough exchange, with Jeffrey Wright, another formidable actor, off to one side. But there’s clearly an amiable vibe mixed in with the brinkmanship, too.
“Russell didn’t come on until week six of production,” Wahlberg recalls. “And the first day that he walked onto the set, we were going to shoot that big confrontation, and Allen Hughes, our director, was saying, ‘You guys want to rehearse?’
“And we both said no. ‘Let’s just start throwin’ down.’ “
And that’s what they did.
A tale of political corruption, police violence, power, and greed, Broken City – opening Friday – owes a debt to classics such as The Big Sleep, The Maltese Falcon and Chinatown. Wahlberg’s Billy Taggert leaves the NYPD and sets 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.
Like Humphrey Bogart’s and Jack Nicholson’s sorry gumshoes, though, it turns out he doesn’t have a clue.
“For sure, those are movies I grew up watching with my dad,” Wahlberg says, acknowledging that’s one of the reasons he went for Broken City – a film he also produced.
“And that’s why we were able to attract the talent, because there were so many well-written parts. People really got to sink their teeth into meaty roles.”
