Broken City and Taken 2

[CBStew]

Mrs. Cubbieblue remarked that we hadn't been to the movies in weeks.  So to remedy the problem we
went over to one of the many 12 screen movie emporiums in a 5 mile radius from Chateau Cubbieblue and ended up seeing this.  It is not a complete waste of time, but like Chinese food, it left us hungry for a movie fix an hour later.  There is no substance here.  Markie Mark just isn't enough of an actor to carry a leading role.  He is a less obnoxious Tom Cruise.  In fact the best acting job was turned in by Russell Crow's hairpieces, which were changed to show the passage of time.  It's about corruption in government.  How is that for novelty?  Crow is the mayor who is being challenged by a reformer, whose campaign manager may be having an affair with Crow's wife (or is he????)  So he hires ex-cop Markie Mark to find out  (or did he???)  The action takes place in the week before a hotly contested election.  It is so hotly contested that the mayor finds time to play squash.  (Is that really the name of that game?)    Anyway people get killed and Markie Mark falls off the wagon and beats up his girlfriend's lover, a subplot that is there only to confuse us, or perhaps to make the movie a little longer for contract reasons.  To satisfy our hunger for a movie an hour later, we went home and watched "Taken 2" on Pay per View.  Now there is a plot.  A bunch of Eastern European Muslims want revenge on Neeson for the last movie.  So Neeson spends two hours killing what seems to be an inexhaustible supply of revenge seekers in Istanbul, (Or is that Constantinople? I forget.)  What acting!  What a script! What a plot!