Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Kate Beckinsale, Ben Foster and Giovanni Ribisi
Directed By: Baltasar Kormakur
Screenplay By: Aaron Guzikowski
Produced By: Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Mark Wahlberg, Stephen Levinson and Baltasar Kormakur
Distributor: Universal Pictures
Rating: R
Running Time: 110 minutes
Website: contrabandmovie.net
Budget: $41 million
Genre: Action / Crime / Drama
Release Date: January 13, 2012
Contraband is a remake of the Icelandic crime thriller Reykjavik-Rotterdam, the country’s official entry in the Best Foreign Language Film category at the 2010 Academy Awards. In adapting the film for an American audience, director Baltasar Kormakur moves the setting from Iceland to New Orleans, an iconic port city that lends itself to a street-level tale of corruption and betrayal. Kormakur, who also starred in the original film, replaces himself with actor Mark Wahlberg (The Fighter), who isn’t nearly as appropriate a fit.
Wahlberg stars as a legendary smuggler who has retired from the criminal life to settle into a quaint middle-class existence with his wife (Kate Beckinsale) and two kids. He’s translated his unique skill set into a successful home security business, but can’t help reminiscing about the past with his former partners (Ben Foster and Lukas Haas). When his annoyingly pasty brother-in-law (Caleb Landry Jones) gets into trouble with a local crime boss (Giovanni Ribisi), Wahlberg is forced to return to his life of crime for one last job, moving millions in counterfeit bills from Panama under the nose of a surly ship captain (J.K. Simmons).
While he possesses an undeniable charisma, the baggage Wahlberg brings with him often impedes on the stripped-down crime thriller Kormakur is trying to make. As criminal activities go, smuggling is one of the least-cinematically exciting. Its long stretches of uncertainty and paranoia could make for an interesting study in tension, but Wahlberg’s action-film pedigree guarantees a certain amount of car chases, gunfire and fistfights per reel, regardless of how little sense they make in a larger context. At one point, he is forced into accepting a video-game-like side mission in order to obtain the materials he needs to proceed with the actual storyline.
Similarly, Wahlberg’s Hollywood stardom disrupts the story’s core concept of an ordinary man going to absurd lengths to protect his family from his past life. Whether by Wahlberg’s choice or the studio’s demands, great pains are taken to ensure the actor never looks weak or vulnerable in any way, which is a strange approach for a movie about a man forced into criminal activity. There’s rarely a moment when Wahlberg isn’t in total control of whatever situation he finds himself in, even though his master plan seems to rely solely on sloppy improvisation. Even when his family is being threatened and he’s staring down the barrel of a gun, he still manages to assert fast and brutal dominance before returning to the needs of the plot.
This push-and-pull between the original film’s sensibilities and the demands of Hollywood is felt throughout the picture, resulting in a jumble of wildly different tones. The feeling of uncertainty and distrust Kormakur attempts to establish is overwhelmed by the easy, frat-boy camaraderie of Wahlberg and the ship’s crew. A stunt sequence featuring the last-minute smuggling of a van into a moving cargo storage unit is on par with any of the vertigo-inducing set pieces from last year’s Tower Heist or Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, but the movie’s major gunfight is completely superfluous. Worst of all, the film immediately backs away from a bold, late-in-the-film plot twist in favor of a hackneyed, happy ending.
The quality of the supporting cast is equally varied. Lukas Haas is refreshing as Wahlberg’s recently-wed partner, who is suddenly realizing how ill-equipped he actually is for the criminal life, while Ben Foster gives a sturdy but predictable turn as Wahlberg’s troubled best friend. Giovanni Ribisi mercilessly chews the scenery as a drawling, tattooed crime boss, and Caleb Landry Jones is powerfully grating as the screw-up brother-in-law. Meanwhile, Kate Beckinsale is little more than an extremely attractive human bargaining chip who is on the receiving end of a gratuitous amount of sexually-tinged violence, even for an American action film.
Contraband can’t decide what kind of movie it wants to be. It will disappoint audiences hoping for a balls-out Mark Wahlberg action flick, as well as those who appreciate a more realistic and thoughtful crime drama.
2 Stars (out of 5)
