Contraband

Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Giovanni Ribisi, Ben Foster, Kate Beckinsale, J.K. Simmons
Directed by: Baltasar Kormakur
Rating: R
Genre: Action, Crime, Drama
2012

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: A former smuggler (Mark Wahlberg) gets back into the business when his brother-in-law is threatened after a deal goes bad.

Review:

Tim: Contraband really didn't look very good to me, and that's probably because this is not a great film. It is a completely average, as-expected Mark Wahlberg action movie. It doesn't give us anything different or anything we haven't seen before. The movie is not bad, but it does nothing to get the audience excited.

I felt a mild level of engagement throughout the film. I wasn't overly bored or disinterested, but I did not really care about any of the characters, either. There have been so many movies made like this that most of them just blend together. That's the biggest problemw ith Contraband- I started to forget this movie before it had even ended. There's just nothing memorable or special about this film at all. It's a total throwaway film- the type of movie that does just enough to keep you from turning it off, but nothing of any substance to take a firm hold in your memory. It's a completely forgettable film.

Mark Wahlberg is fine. I still don't like him much, but I have softened my stance on him in recent years. He was average in every sense here. This role was far too similar to a dozen other roles he's been in before. It was probably very easy for him to step into this role and he didn't do anything challenging or exciting with his performance. He played it exactly as you'd expect him to play it. He was fine, but a bit lackluster.

The supporting cast was fine. I really liked seeing Giovanni Ribisi in a dark, antagonistic role. He was good. Ben Foster was very fun to watch in an ambiguously dark role. He was quite good- Foster is a vastly underrated actor, and he shone here. Kate Beckinsale felt completely underutilized in this film. I don't remember anything about her performance. Playing the "wife" wasn't exactly a great career move for her. I guess it pays the bills. I really liked seeing J.K. Simmons here- he always, always makes movies better.

The cast in place is fairly good, but they just had a generic, run-of-the-mill story around them. Smuggling can certainly be an interesting topic for a movie, and there are a few legitimately intense moments throughout this film. However, we never really buy into the characters, so the suspense is significantly lessened, because we're not emotionally invested in their story. There's a few moments in Panama that should have been extremely tense, but I just shugged them off- it was obvious how it would all turn out. I felt quite disappointed in many of these sequences.

Contraband really isn't a bad movie. It's just a very generic, decent film. The story has a few twists and turns to ensure the audience is paying attention, but the end result feels a bit too lackluster. The only emotion this film generated in me was the occasion hint of boredom. I don't hate this movie, but I wish that I didn't feel like it was a huge waste of 109 minutes. Mark Wahlberg owes it to us to deliver better quality films than this.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 6



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