Mark Wahlberg will follow up his smash success from last year’s Ted with a complete departure from the comedy genre.

His next film will be the crime thriller Broken City and will make for a nice change of pace for the actor. Wahlberg will be playing an ex-cop-turned-private-investigator opposite Russel Crowe and Catherine Zeta-Jones. Despite the big names attached to the project however, the critics aren’t responding favorably towards it. This is director Allen Hughes’ first solo project without his brother, Albert Hughes, as well as the debut effort by screenwriter Brian Tucker, so there was always going to be a chance that things didn't go a well as anticipated.

Perhaps it is experience that the team is lacking, because, according to some reviews, the film starts off well enough, but eventually loses steam. The Huffington Post’s Marshall Fine calls the film “pale and predictable”, while Todd McCarthy from The Hollywood Reporter calls the direction haphazard. Overall, the reception isn’t terrible, but we expected better from Wahlberg given he past few performances. We all know the man can pick some solid titles, so the question is, what happened here? A bit disappointing, but you may be better off spending your money on another film this January. Then again, the critics don’t always have the final say. Broken City clearly won’t be winning any awards soon, but we’re not counting it out for a nice chunk of box office revenue just yet.