DVD Review: Contraband
If a terrific cast made for a terrific movie, Contraband would be terrific. In The Departed, The Fighter and We Own The Night, Mark Wahlberg has shown himself to be an expert and appealing tough guy actor. And as for Ben Foster and Giovanni Ribisi — I would watch those guys shoot the phone book. They are so great at playing edgy, sleazy, crazy guys, they fill every scene they’re in with a sense of danger. (If you like out-of-the-way crime dramas and you’ve never seen Foster in Alpha Dog, stop reading this and go watch it.) Even British will-o-the-wisp Kate Beckinsale does a thoroughly creditable job here as a working class American wife. The performances are fun to watch long after the picture runs out of steam.
Which it does about half an hour in. The movie is a remake of a 2008 Icelandic production, and it feels like a foreign film — not in a good way. It tells the story of an expert smuggler trying to go straight for the sake of his wife and kids. But when his brother-in-law gets in dutch with a lunatic gangster, the smuggler has to pull one last job to bail him out.
So far so good, but after that, and for much of the heart of the movie, our hero is pulled passively into various dangers — something that just doesn’t happen in American films and with good reason. Plus, as sympathetic as Wahlberg plays him, the guy is really kind of a stinker. I mean, it was interesting to see him light up with excitement as he re-enters a life of crime after dutiful years on the up-and-up. But when he participates in heists that get law officers killed and makes his pile in thoroughly despicable transactions — I’m sorry, call me a prig, but I’m not rooting for him anymore.
So – the cast will pull you through this but you can do better. Watch Alpha Dog instead.
I know what you are saying and I agree. I used to watch the sopranos and think to myself, this is interesting stuff, but in reality, I think these guys are scum and need to be locked up or executed for all the murders they committed. I did think it was a funny line when the one F.B.I. agent, monitoring the New Jersey mob, said to the agent watching the New York mob, during the mob war, “Hey, our guys are winning,” or something like that. It was a funny moment.
I think the best episode of the sopranos was the one when Carmela went to see the psychiatrist. You can find this on Youtube. It is a great scene where he actually tells her the truth about what she needs to do as a human being. It is that scene where she decides to go all in with what she actually is as a person. Those moments matched what I thought when I watched contraband. Thanks. I love your posts, they’re great.
Kate did great work in England before she learned to speak proper American English. I don’t like her hanging out with the undead. As a true fam I’ll have to see the movie.
I’m sorry, but this may point out the difference between those who study these kinds of movies for a living (K.O.T.C.) and those who watch a movie from time to time for the sheer fun of it (Y.T.- yours truly). I watched both of these back to back because I like your insight- but, at least from my point of view, you err rather badly in this post. This is of course my view as a casual moviegoer, but Alpha Dog made me sick- being as it all about a rather stupid, completely unecessary murder, and a lot of stone head kids you want to line up like the Three Stooges and give ‘em a nice big serial slap or two (Even though it was superbly photographed and acted.). And I hate bad endings. Sorry, but I get reminded daily what crappy things sometimes happen in this world, and I don’t need a film or novel to remind me. Bad endings don’t always ruin a story for me, but the stuff before the ending has to be excepionally good for me to like the story as a whole. Besides, that’s not how the universe works. The end game for this universe is unambiguously good, if one has, like I have, a Biblical world view.
Contraband, by contrast, goes in a straight line from a bad guy turned family man who finds himself in an impossible situation desperately fighting to preserve the good thing he finally found in his life- his wife and two sons- to the ultimately happy end game. In between there is lots of tension, and although the main character is no paragon of virtue, he was a good enough guy for me to root for. The situation where cops get killed was one he was forced into, so I don’t blame him for it, and anyone stupid enought to pay 20 mil for a Jackson Pollack drip painting deserves what he gets. This from a casual viewer.
Also, another good reason to watch Alpha Dog is you get to see Olivia Wilde’s boobies.
I ended up ordering this movie on Blockbuster @Home because my husband has been bugging me to get it. A lot of my co-workers at Dish told me they liked watching so we watched it and I was on my toes! It was pretty suspenseful and the brother-in-law got on my nerves, he reminded me of Homer off The Simpsons always messing things up. Anyways I did like the movie so did my husband and we watched it a few times since we didn’t have to return it right away and I would recommend it to my friends and family.