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Saturday, January 14, 2012
MOVIE REVIEW
Contraband
Wanted: Semi-Domesticated Action Hero. Mops, Vacuums, Drug Runs.
(Takes Out The Trash, Too.)
Mark Wahlberg as Chris Farraday in Baltasar Kormákur's action-drama "Contraband".
Universal Pictures
by
Omar P.L. Moore/PopcornReel.com
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Saturday,
January 14, 2012
Baltasar Kormákur's "Contraband", based on "Reykjavik-Rotterdam", a 2008
Icelandic film that its native Mr.
Kormákur starred in, is an entertaining, light-rooted action drama that relaxes
its muscles and laughs things up. Everything is tongue and cheek in a film
that has the feel of Michael Mann's "Heat" in the cadence of its dialogue and
some situations during the film's first half, and the manic quick-fire tension
of Tony Scott's pulsating dramas in its second. The film eventually
settles into the director's own calm, deliberate style, and it works.
"Contraband" opened yesterday across the U.S. and Canada.
Chris Farraday (Mark Wahlberg) is a family man first. Securing the family
and his home security company are his business. A former drug smuggler,
Chris is happily retired and taking care of his wife Kate (Kate Beckinsale) and
their two sons. Kate's brother Andy (Caleb Landry Jones) is in knee deep
to a petty drug gangster Briggs (Giovanni Ribisi), who wants the drugs he's owed
by yesterday or Andy, Kate, and Chris's sons are toast. Chris inevitably
helps his brother-in-law by going to bat one last time and getting his hands
dirty. He recruits a motley un-Ocean's Eleven-minus-seven crew to help
out. And boy, are they efficient! While Chris is away, his best
friend Sebastian (Ben Foster) watches over his family.
"Contraband" is a smart, methodical, gritty action drama about the joy of being
bad. There's no policing the bad guys or even the supposed good ones.
The director leaves these wildcats to their own devices, and they happily
oblige. Mr. Ribisi, who has lately turned to chewing up scenery as if he'd
been a month without meals ("The Rum Diary"), does so again here as Briggs, the
baddest jive talker on the block. Like most of the players on display
Briggs' bark is worse than his bite, and the director restrains the violence to
a degree, or at least the impulse to exercise it, an unusual feat in an R-rated
film.
Mr. Ribisi isn't the only amped up actor; J.K. Simmons entertains as a captain
on the ship to Panama that Chris is using to smuggle money and drugs.
Appropriately named Captain Camp, Mr. Simmons growls and snarls away. Camp
knows of Chris's history of exploits and, in true comic style consistent with
the overriding flavor of "Contraband", immediately relegates Chris to mopping
floors and vacuuming on the ship. The domesticated endeavor seems
thankless (a label that is appropriately sticks for the talented Ms.
Beckinsale's damsel-in-distress Kate character), but the script by Aaron
Guzikowski (based on Arnaldur Indriðason and Óskar Jónasson's "Reykjavik"
script) allows the demotion its own clever implications.
The pace of "Contraband" is nimble, very much tongue-in-cheek. Each of the
snarlers in chief (including the heavier Diego Luna) looks as if they could
break out into a smile at any moment. Mr. Wahlberg, a far better actor
than he's given credit for (aside from "The Departed" see
"The Lovely
Bones",
"The Fighter") smiles a lot in this film but
only has to use his musculature when it's absolutely necessary. We know of
his physical prowess and Mr. Wahlberg's Chris never has to work too hard.
He grimaces only at the shenanigans he encounters and not at the stress of
having to flex super non-steroid-induced muscles. Chris makes promises and
tries keeping them amidst the improbabilities that will inevitably intrude.
Mr. Kormákur creates expanses and atmospheres and builds both well, yet
paradoxically boxes in his characters into tight spaces, their primary existence
as cargo by default. They are commodities, literally and figuratively, and
several characters will be packaged as such. Yet no bad or good guy is
really harmed in the making of this action movie, although one unlucky black guy
named Walter, we're told, dies off camera.
When was the last time you saw an action film and knew that all of the players
were having fun on the big screen? Think back to last year. You'd be
hard pressed to come up with one. In the phenomenally good French thriller
"Point
Blank", the film's climax was one of relief. In the admirably
relentless
"Fast Five" most of the smiles and laughs were saved until the end
(the first "end", if you will.) In "Contraband", the grins and
teeth-baring dot the treacherous landscape throughout, and even when things get
predictable, you have to admire the relaxed way that Mr. Kormákur and company go
about their business. I was relaxed watching this frivolity and admired
every second of it. "Contraband" is a good way to begin 2012 at the
movies.
With: Lukas Haas, Kent Jude Bernard, David O'Hara, Connor Hill, Jackson Beals,
Jacqueline Fleming, Jason Mitchell.
"Contraband" is rated R by the Motion Picture Association
Of America for violence, pervasive language and brief drug use. The film's running time
is one hour and 50 minutes.
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