Reviewed by Lamar Kukuk
1/14/12
‘Tis the season: you
know, the one after the holiday movie season when a well-made star vehicle
looks pretty good against all the fake exorcism documentaries and long-delayed
would-be blockbusters that make up the average year’s Winter schedule.
Contraband, a remake of Icelandic blockbuster Reykjavik-Rotterdam,
directed by that movie’s star Baltasar Kormakur, is one of those action
caper stories where one thing leads to another until you mostly forget
why its wheels were spinning in the first place. But it’s light on
its feet and it’s got a terrific cast, most notably star Mark Wahlberg
doing what he does so well, looking like he knows a hundred and fifty ways
to crush your skull but really just wants to be friends… as long as you
don’t piss him off. Add the fascinatingly flawed Ben Foster and another
of Giovanni Ribisi’s patented “out there” performances and you’ve got a
group of performers who’re just fun to watch go through the paces of a
film that’s a lot more fun than its trailer might lead you to expect, even
if it doesn’t exactly pack the dramatic impact of The
Fighter. Contraband is the reason we go to the movies…
those weeks when we’re not going to see something great.
Chris Farraday (Mark Wahlberg)
was an ace smuggler, but got out of the life for his wife Kate (Kate Beckinsale)
and two sons. Her brother Andy (Caleb Landry-Jones) was not as bright
and takes a job moving some drugs for Tim Briggs (Giovanni Ribisi), the
brother of Chris’ late former partner. When Customs officials board
his boat, he tosses the drugs in the water, inspiring Tim to kill Andy’s
partner and leave him badly beaten. Chris tries to “work something
out” only to learn that once Andy’s been killed, the debt will transfer
to his relatives: he has no choice but to stage a new job to get
the money he needs. His best friend Sebastian (Ben Foster) suggests
a drug run, but Chris won’t get mixed up with drugs and instead arranges
an elaborate scheme to transport counterfeit money on a ship overseen by
an old family rival, Captain Camp (J.K. Simmons). Chris and his hastily-assembled
Crew all get jobs on the boat and soon they’re off to Panama, where the
money awaits. But one thing leads to another, Tim keeps paying menacing
visits to the family back home, and the real source of Chris’ woes is not
what he thinks.
Contraband’s ad materials
put on the same face Chris has been putting on for Kate, but once the wife’s
away and the movie sets sail, Kormakur’s feature reveals itself as something
closer in spirit to Wahlberg’s 2003 hit The Italian Job.
As one thing after another goes wrong with his original smuggling plan,
Chris has to keep improvising and a lot of throwaway bits pay off at the
end… hey, we all know this territory. It’s carried off with a lot
of spirit by a fun group of actors, and that’s the best thing to be said
about Contraband: it’s a fun movie. The plot has a tendency
to resemble “a bunch of stuff that happened”, as though the writers had
been forced to assemble it from beginning to end in one sitting with no
revision, and the third act takes a ridiculously melodramatic detour we
could certainly have done without, but nothing ever seems all too dire
and the plates keep spinning cheerfully until the good guys get their reward
and the bad guys get what they have coming.
Wahlberg has a lot more range
than he generally gets to use, but one reason for that is how much he just
owns roles like this. The combination of his vicious intensity, his
kinda high voice for an action hero and general air of intelligence combines
to make him always seem like a more interesting character than his material
suggests. Chris is an off-the-rack creation, but he lives and breathes
because you just tell Mark Wahlberg that he’s not a master criminal who’s
really trying to reform. Go on, try it! He’s backed by a fun
collection of cohorts, most notably Lukas Haas and Kevin “Lucky” Johnson.
Beckinsale’s role is on the thankless side, but she’s believable in it,
and Jones is good at that weasley “I’ll always make the stupid choice”
thing movies like this need to run, although the story lets Andy off a
little easy for my taste . Simmons makes Captain Camp just the right
kind of self-important blowhard we’re never sorry to see get taken advantage
of in a good heist movie.
Foster is such a great actor
in part because you never know exactly what he’s going to do, and Sebastian
has all kinds of twists and turns to him that are made all the more interesting
because he’s played like even he doesn’t really have any kind of solid
plan for the next five minutes. Ribisi deserves a lot of credit for
his willingness to really go for it in a role (his sensational work in
the Flight of the Phoenix remake was unjustly overshadowed by the
general mediocrity of just about everything else in that forgettable production),
and Tim is on his short list of most interesting creations. He’s
a nasal, cocky imbecile of a criminal mastermind, made dangerous mostly
by his willingness to pull a gun first and only ask questions after killing
you. It’s a really fun character precisely because you know there’s
nobody in the audience who’s not going to enjoy watching him get punched
in the nose as many times as Chris can fit in during Contraband’s 110 minute
running time.
Don’t go into Contraband
expecting heavy drama or brilliant plotting: it’s above all else
a lark. But it’s a very entertaining lark, and one of the most solidly
constructed of Wahlberg’s 2nd-tier starring vehicles (it doesn’t need his
charisma to survive the way, say, Max Payne
did). In other words, it’s a good time at the movies, and it’s January.
Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em. |
