Stranded in the movie wasteland that is January, ‘Contraband’ manages to be at least slightly entertaining and engaging, if not exactly groundbreaking. Directed by Baltasar Kormakur, star of the Icelandic thriller which ‘Contraband’ is based on, this movie is a relatively thrill-free thriller.
Mark Wahlberg plays Chris Farraday, a former big time smuggler who’s left the lifestyle and settled down with a wife and kids. But when his brother-in-law Andy botches a cocaine delivery, Chris is forced to step back into the game to settle things with Tim Briggs (Giovanni Ribisi), Andy’s greasy boss. Farraday sets up a smuggling run to bring back a massive shipment of counterfeit bills from Panama while his friend Sebastian (Ben Foster) protects his family from Briggs.
Farraday and a group of other smugglers sign on to a cargo ship making runs between New Orleans and Panama. The captain of this ship is none other than J.K. Simmons, the dad from ‘Juno’ and J. Jonah Jameson from the ‘Spiderman’ films. He’s possibly the most entertaining performance of the movie, causing trouble for Farraday by trying to catch him in the act. Even though the captain makes a lot of trouble for Farraday and his group, one can’t help but like him.
It’s somewhat difficult to take Briggs seriously as a villain considering that the voice he uses for the role is laughable at best. Luckily, David O’Hara (‘Wanted’) provides at least some menace as a shadowy crime boss. His role in the story isn’t all that well established, but he occasionally shows up, makes threats or offers, and then disappears, taking, at times, an overly thick Scottish accent with him.
Overall the entire movie is slightly ridiculous, stretching the bounds of believability and even its own timetable. Upon arriving in Panama, Wahlberg and his merry band of smugglers only have a short time to get the counterfeit bills and return to the ship before it leaves.
In this “short time” they find the bills, realize they aren’t good, manage to find another supplier – even though nobody knows how to get to his warehouse – and get mixed up in an armored car robbery. Where did they find all the time for this? Probably the same place Briggs found his ridiculous accent.
While there are a number of light-hearted scenes in ‘Contraband,’ it doesn’t hesitate to travel into dark areas as well. Briggs’ attacks Farraday’s wife played by Kate Beckinsale who takes her fair share of physical brutality over the course of the movie.
In the end, the film does the best it can with the tired heist storyline, but it’s nothing all that special.