Contraband is not migraine-inducingly stupid like some recent films in the genre, but neither is it the least bit fun or innovative
Movie Review: Contraband
A; Thriller
Dir: Baltasar Korm kur
Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Kate Beckinsale, Ben Foster, Giovanni Ribisi |
Stars: *1/2
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The story is quite similar to the originalu00a0-- Chris Farraday (Mark Wahlberg) is a former drug smuggler who has come clean and now leads a respectable life at a security systems company along with his wife Kate (Kate Beckinsale) and kids. One day Kate's idiot brother Andy (Caleb Landry) gets mixed up with some nasty business and owes a huge debt to the sleazy drug lord Tim (Giovanni Ribisi). With his wife and brother-in-law's lives under serious threat, Chris now has no chance but to revert to his old ways and steal money to even things out. He devises a plan to get a job aboard a cargo ship sailing between Louisiana and Panama and make off with millions in counterfeited bills. Naturally, things don't go according to plan, and all kinds of mayhem happen.
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Sadly, there is precious little that is memorable or even exciting in Contraband. The film only works in fits and starts as none of the cast members manage to replicate the grimy B-movie vibes of Reykjav k- Rotterdam. Contraband comes off as extremely formulaic, totally messy with its insipid directorial style, and boasts characters so stock that we're left to just sit and wait for these guys to shake us out of our naps. Mark Wahlberg is again the exact same character he played in Planet of the Apes, Four Brothers and Shooter, and even here he seems uninterested with the proceedings. There is a twist in the second half but you can see it coming just 10 minutes into the film. There are decent amounts of bullets, explosions and expletives and Contraband does have a reasonably big budget, yet the film just fails to demand any attention whatsoever and continually proves itself to be run-of-the-mill potboiler.
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Contraband is not migraine-inducingly stupid like some recent films in the genre, but neither is it the least bit fun or innovative. It is exactly what you'd expect - whether that's good or bad depends on your mood.
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