Contraband
2012 Directed by Baltasar Kormákur
Synopsis
What would you hide to protect your family?
Chris Faraday once smuggled illegal items or contraband into the country on freighters. He left that life behind, got married has a family and went legit. But when his brother-in-law got involved with Briggs, a drug dealer and when he blew a deal, Briggs demands restitution which he can't deliver. So Chris offers to find a way to pay him but the he threatens Chris' family if he doesn't deliver. So he gets on a freighter destined for Panama and he sets out to bring back some counterfeit currency. Briggs "goes to see" Chris' family. When Chris learns of this he asks his friend Sebastian to take care of them which he does. He tells Chris that it would be better to bring drugs instead of the cash.
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Part of The December Project: Film #48
I will always defend the idea of a "Formula film". These days, I feel as if the adjective "formulaic" is thrown around with reckless abandon over what the idea of a formula really is. In reality, formulas exist because they work. But a formula can only work if you understand and believe in it. Contraband can't commit to either.
I shouldn't be surprised that a January release made to be some kind of half Tony Scott/Michael Mann reject (and it's basing itself off the worst of their tendencies) is so fucking dull. This is the kind of movie that gives the idea of a "formula film" a bad name. It gets none of…
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Contraband doesn’t have an original idea in its entire two hour runtime. Whether it is the kind hearted crook forced to pull off one final job or the stock characters, it is a story you’ve seen countless times before. The real disappointing thing is that all these predictable elements have been handled with far greater skill and verve than this leaden heist.
With any film of this kind there is always a point where it stretches plausibility. In Contraband this happens a little too frequently as we get yet another contrived plot diversion that helps out our protagonists whilst the actual planned heist element is disappointingly simple and devoid of drama. All the actors sleepwalk through their roles with the…
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This film is like the snooze button on your alarm clock.
It wakes you up every 9 minutes with either somebody shouting, shooting a gun or crashing a car, only to bore you back to sleep with its cliché ridden, poorly acted plot.
This film has already been made. And a million times better at that.
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Contrabad.
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While its cast is peppered with pleasing names, "Contraband" does not have a lot else going for it. Its style is indistinct, the film looking like a half-dozen other action thrillers made in the Tony Scott vein. Its tone is ever-shifting, and the story is pocked with credibility-sucking holes in its character motivations. It could have been a fun exercise had it sported a few more set pieces, but, overall, "Contraband" is less than engaging.
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Soon as you see Ben Foster the game is up. That guy is typecast out of his arse and back again. He even does his 3:10 to Yuma face.
Get the guy a swivel chair and a white cat.
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Beckinsale's performance is the only thing worth watching in a movie that tries to be adventurous, but is plain boring.
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I wanted to like this but pretty soon I noticed how dull it was and lost my interest. Meh.
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Solid enough but cliched beyond enjoyment.
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Predictable action movie with Mark Wahlberg who is smuggling aboard a freight ship to get his young brother in law, who blew up a smuggling deal, out of the hands of a gang. Everything you'd expect on forehand is in this movie, no surprises or twists.
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What surprised me rewatching this is how incredibly grim and self-serious this film is. It shouldn't be that surprising, really, since Baltasar's movies have all been pretty humorless affairs, but the original is so funny and charming that this in comparison feels like a slog. Also it's a shockingly ugly film, I'm beginning to suspect that Baltasar doesn't have much of a visual sense.
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Director Baltasar Kormakur brings you a Hollywood facelift of Reykjavik-Rotterdam, a gritty Icelandic thriller in which he played the lead role. It’s that film you’ve likely seen advertised on many a double-decker bus, it’s Contraband. Chris (Wahlberg) is an ex-smuggler who’s now chosen a righteous path running his own home-security company to provide for his wife Kate (Beckinsale) and two children. All is swell in Chris‘ life until his liability of a brother-in-law Andy (Caleb Landry Jones) botches up a drugs deal, thus severely pissing off a gang of ruthless thugs. In order to keep his family out of harm’s way Chris must take the only heroic option and finish off the job himself.
What sounds like a white-knuckle, nail-biting…
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Contraband is a decent enough, watchable thriller that occasionally threatens something better but never quite pulls it off. The one-last-job to get a brother-in-law out of trouble set up, is got out of the way fairly swiftly and the film quickly gets on with the business of being a nuts and bolts thriller with a couple of good action set pieces. The milieu of smuggling feels quite fresh. It something I haven’t seen much of before, presumably because it’s mostly just sitting on container ships with blokes with poor personal hygiene, as a twenty-minute stretch after they boat leaves panama will attest to. Still, it helps the film to carve some sort of individuality.
Mark Wahlberg’s Chris is a ho-hum…
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Clunky.
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Good tight thriller with the added spice of a pretty minute description of how smuggling through freight ships is done. A couple of twists that i did see coming and a couple that really took me by surprise. Darker and smarter than a thriller of this caliber. Fel lite Oceans Eleven but with more grit and less class. Wahlberg, Foster and Ribisi is okay but not great, feels like they all have played these roles better before, Simmons as per ususal sublime. The problem is that Beckinsale is boring. I didn't even flinch emotionally in her key scene, although i was surprised that it happened.