A better title suggests itself, but “Paycheck” was already taken. “Contraband” aims to be dumb fun but gets only the first half right. In other words, ‘Contraband’ is Mark raving bad! Wahlberg’s latest is a perfect storm of bad plot, miscasting and unbelievability. (There’s a great running bit about a stolen Jackson Pollock that every moron here thinks is a painter’s tarp.) And you may appreciate Wahlberg’s steadiness as an actor, his ability – in a routine paycheck like this – to convey dread, or contempt, or even philosophical weariness with a glance.Įnjoy this one and don’t feel guilty, then forget it immediately.
Here’s the thing: You may notice that in between laughing at “Contraband” you’ll be leaning forward a little in your seat and worrying about the characters and even laughing in a few places where you’re supposed to. However, because linear sense is not really an aspiration of the filmmakers, its absence is not a real problem.
The best guess is that the screenwriters have no idea, either, because half of what he does just can’t be done. The mobster is played by Giovanni Ribisi, who is so unkempt and creepy here that he makes Ratso Rizzo look like Fred Astaire.įor the audience, it’s impossible to keep track of the caper because the movie never tells us how the smuggler does what he does. From there, most of the movie takes place in two locations, following the smugglers’ efforts in Panama and showing how, back home, Chris’ wife (a blond Kate Beckinsale) keeps getting harassed and threatened by a mobster.
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So our hero and a crack team of crooks get jobs on the crew of a cargo ship with the intention of smuggling counterfeit currency from Central America. Which means that, in order to pay it forward, Wahlberg needs to direct it somewhere else, and on and on, until every country has a version of this thing. “Contraband” is based on an Icelandic movie, “Reykjavik-Rotterdam,” which I unaccountably missed despite my strenuous efforts to keep up with Icelandic cinema, but here’s the interesting thing: Baltasar Kormakur, who directed the American version, apparently did not direct the Icelandic version, but he did star in it. If he doesn’t, the mob will wipe out his family.
His young brother-in-law, who has the brains of a distracted paramecium, has gotten into $750,000 worth of debt, and Chris (Wahlberg) has to pay the money back. Here he plays a genius-level smuggler who has gone straight, but who is dragged back to do one last job. It is Mark Wahlberg’s lot in life to be consistently cast as the lone smart guy in an environment that produces only stupidity, such that his characters can’t even recognize colossal, world-class idiocy for the novelty it is, but only as one more nuisance in a harried life. One of the things that makes it enjoyable is that it’s so ridiculous. We’re not going to get anywhere if we’re not honest with each other, so let’s start by admitting three things: that “Contraband” is a ridiculous movie, that it wasn’t meant to be a ridiculous movie, and that it’s an enjoyable movie. Starring Mark Wahlberg and Kate Beckinsale.
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