Billy Taggart ( Mark Wahlberg) a disgraced police officer now a private eye is hired by Mayor Hosteleyer ( Russell Crowe) to investigate his wife. Who might be cheating on him whilst he is seeking re-election but is it all as it seems?
Review
The film opens with a police officer standing over a person shot dead with a smoking gun in his hand. It all looks like self defense and eventually he is cleared of murder. The dead man is a suspected rapist and murderer. Unfortunately there is new evidence against him and he is forced to resign but as a guarantee to him, Mayor Hosteleyer promises to bring him back into the fold when the time is right.
That police officer is Billy Taggart and 7 years later we find him as a private eye down on his luck until he gets a call from the Mayor. Billy returns to City Hall and with high expectations of returning to the Police force but is disappointed to find him hired to investigate his wife, who he knows is cheating on him but cannot prove it. Billy is disappointed with the job but the pay is good. So good he can't refuse.
So he trails Cathleen Hosteleyer ( Catherine Zeta-Jones) and pretty soon discovers her lover who also happens to be the election manager of the Mayor's rival. Already it 's started to look fishy but Billy ignores his instincts and with false loyalties gives the incriminating evidence of the lover with fatal consequences.
Wracked by guilt and questioning his own actions for the consequences he then starts to question his own loyalties to the Mayor and on whether the Mayor is as good a man as he is made out to be.
This a corruption film where power and greed drives the ambition of the Mayor under the guise of the good of the city. Billy's once unquestioning loyalty is put to the test and soon he starts to investigate the Mayor's dealings. We find murder, dodgey land deals, double crosses and greed.
It's a complicated mess of a film and sometimes confusing. There is a lack of tension as Billy investigates and finds corruption going higher and higher. The reason why there is no tension is that Billy has nothing to lose. So the stakes are low.
The love interest story is light and rather superfluous to the film except for how they met.
Mark Wahlberg is rather bland. Russell Crowe plays a convincing politician of kissing babies but he should also be stealing their sweets at the same time. This bit he could have been nastier.
The film does not tie up all the threads of the film successfully. It's over complicated and there is no tension in the film. So when the film ends there is no feeling of justice has been served and where the villain deserved his comeuppance it just feels flat.
6/10
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