In “Contraband” Mark Wahlberg plays Chris Farraday, a former smuggler who is trying to go straight and live a normal life with his wife and kids. Of course that isn’t easy, especially when his wife has a moron brother who gets into some trouble with some bad dudes. So Marky Mark has to take action, assemble his crew and pull of some jobs, schemes, etc. in order to get his brother in law, himself and his family out of the deep.
The one thing this movie has going for it is a solid cast. Giovanni Ribisi is so good at playing a white trash dirt bag, it’s almost getting hard to tell if he’s playing a character of if he just shows up on set and plays himself. J.K. Simmons plays the Captain of the ship used to smuggle this and that and here is plays the role as gruff as he always does. Kate Beckinsale plays Farraday’s wife here and she is the only one I had a problem with. She’s usually the tough one in her movies so it seemed like a bit of a stretch to see her playing the vulnerable but protective wife and mother. Part of the problem with this movie is the actors, as good as they are just seem to be playing different versions of characters they’ve played time and time again.
The movie tries to be more than what it is and maybe it would have been better if it had gone the Jerry Bruckheimer route and went for straight up popcorn movie action schtick. It certainly has the cardboard cut-out characters for it.
“Contraband” has some decent action scenes but overall it’s a pretty predictable heist movie with the usual twists and turns that come along with it. Wahlberg is great at looking cool and acting tough but playing a former criminal bad ass doesn’t really need him to stretch all that much from his norm. The guy has more range than he is given credit for but probably needs a director who knows how to get the most out of his scowl. For what it is, this is not bad but not great either. Then again, with this kind of movie, you know exactly what you’re getting yourself into unfortunately that’s about all you get out of it.
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Contraband trailer: