Broken City (2013) poster
2013 · thriller · crime · drama · revenge

Broken City

Directed by Allen Hughes1h 49m2013
ElsewhereIMDb6.185kRT26%Metacritic49
  • heavy
  • extreme
  • bleak
  • cold
  • twisty
Movie DNA

Heavy, steady, extreme thriller / crime, grounded in texture. Nihilistic, mid-stakes, cold, hand-scored across twelve axes of taste.

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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.

Our read · Broken City (2013) reads as a heavy, steady, grounded thriller · crime · drama entry — extreme in intensity, mid-stakes in scope, cold in temperature, nihilistic in outlook. Hand-scored on twelve axes of taste — mood, pacing, weirdness, hope, stakes, humour, reality, density, warmth, auteur, intensity, and era — with a derived palette drawn from its dominant cinematography.

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The shape of Broken City

Tonight, this looks like

What watching it is actually like.

You want grim NYC noir with Wahlberg and Crowe circling political corruption.

ends bittersweetit stays with yousteady all the waygrips by minute 14attention 4/5earns its length
Date nightWith friendsSoloWith parentsKids around
Heads-upnuditygraphic violence

Skip it tonightYou need a clean hero or a mystery that fully pays off its threads.

DNA · twelve axes

The reading.

Each axis is hand-scored — not derived from votes or genre averages. The marker shows where this film sits; the gradient fill uses the film's own cinematography palette.

Mood · HeavyCosy
Pacing · Slow-burnKinetic
Intensity · GentleExtreme
Weirdness · ConventionalSurreal
Hope · NihilisticRedemptive
Stakes · IntimateEpic
Humour · NoneBroad
Reality · GroundedFantastical
Density · SparseTwisty
Warmth · ColdTender
Auteur · TransparentSignature
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