Movie Review: Contraband

“To protect his brother-in-law from a drug lord, a former smuggler heads to Panama to score millions of dollars in counterfeit bills.”

Genre : Action, Thriller

Director : Baltasar Kormakur

Writers : Aaron Guzikowski

Cast : Mark Wahlberg, Kate Beckinsale, Ben Foster

What makes a crime drama compelling to watch? An enjoyable hero we care about, a believable villain we fear, an unexpected plot twist or two, and a tension filled climax that leaves our hearts pounding. Unfortunately, Contraband has none of these qualities. Contraband is a sloppy, by-the-numbers film, that desperately tries to create gritty tension, but fails due to its convoluted plot, constant tonal shifts and lack of believability.

Chris Farraday (Mark Wahlberg) is an ex-smuggler who is drawn back into the illegal profession he left behind in an attempt to protect his brother-in-law from a small time drug lord. Contraband is a film that tries to present us with a man that will do anything to protect his family, but the plot is so unnecessarily complicated and predictable that I never cared whether Farraday succeeded or not. Farraday is never in control of his situation; he’s always laughably thwarted by the brainless incompetence of his sidekicks. Which is completely incongruous to his character, as he is clearly the most intelligent smuggler there ever was. But he surrounds himself with companions that literally do not have the ability to follow his instructions and thus nearly crash a freightliner into a Panamanian shipping yard. Why does a freightliner nearly crash? Apparently, it was an effort to add more action to the dull script written by first time screenwriter Aaron Guzikowskui. Guzikowskui’s attempts at character and action moments always fall short of achieving any significant emotional impact or believability as character flaws abound in this film. Not character flaws such as greed or arrogance that would benefit character development. But rather, we get character flaws that make you shake your head at the stupidity of it all, such as not locking a door.

I wanted to like Farraday, but he continually made poor decisions and failed to predict any of the obstacles that lay in his path, thus putting him and his family in jeopardy. Normally this would make for a suspense filled plot, but when Farraday is having fun, in fact laughing about how much fun he is having at playing smuggler again, I lose all sense of tension and credibility in his character. The tension may have held if the small time drug lord, Tim Briggs (Giovanni Ribisi), came across as more of a hard edged villain and not just a simple tattooed street thug with slicked back hair and a silly New Orleans accent. When a villain comes across as an errand boy and not the fear inducing bad guy controlling the life or death of people we hold dear, a film has failed before it has even begun. Furthermore, Tim Briggs and the characters Sebastian Abney (Ben Foster) and Kate Farraday (Kate Beckinsale) may as well have been in an entirely different movie altogether since their scenes added the only small amount of plausible compelling suspense to the story. But sadly those moments were constantly being undercut by the absurdity of the situations that Farraday and his merry band of nitwits faced.

Contraband has serious tonal problems and had it not been so poorly by director Baltasar Kormákur it may have been enjoyable. Kormákur was desperately trying to ape the documentary style of Michael Mann without the ability to discern when or where to properly use small camera movements and zooms to more emotional effect. The film would have been far better if Kormákur firmly stayed with the emotionally serious tone he started off with instead of lapsing into and out of moments of comical levity. One moment Contraband is a crime drama, the next it’s a fun filled heist movie; then it makes attempts at being a gritty action movie. Random, unnecessary, and flat-out uninspired slow motion shots of bullet penetrations and bodies being launched into the air by an explosion do not make an action scene.

I really wanted to be more positive about this film. I was hoping for an enjoyable mix of drama and action, but I was left laughing at the dramatic moments and hoping that the action scenes would make up for the laughs. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. At best, Contraband is a mildly entertaining popcorn flick, but it lacks any emotional depth and is void of enjoyable characters that would have given it more heart.