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| CONTRABAND (2012)
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SBD Star Rating:
by Chiara Adorno
View Credits | See Other Reviews
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Contraband has critics mostly divided in what is labeled your average January action thriller.The film is based on the Icelandic film Reykjavik-Rotterdam about a smuggler directed by Baltasar Kormákur, who was the star and one of the producers of the earlier movie. The remake stars Mark Walberg, who plays Chris Farraday. Chris is lured into the quintessential one-last-job when his young brother-in-law (Caleb Landry Jones) screws up a shipment and throws 10 pounds of Cocaine overboard when his ship is interdicted. Chris agrees to make "one more run" to Panama to save his wife's brother. Evil guy Tim Briggs (Giovanni Ribisi) makes it clear that unless Chris covers the loss, the Farraday family will be targeted. Glenn Kenny MSN Movies concludes the film "...is as hackneyed as hackneyed gets (it's the one about the old pro who's gone straight and just when he thinks he's out they pull him back in again, rinse, lather, repeat), it piles on complications and veers in new directions with such impressive dispatch that it more often than not sweeps the viewer past a bunch of plausibility checkpoints with no concerns save how the hero's gonna get out of his next nasty jam. It's a good, chugging caper movie for the most part.... while no groundbreaker, Contrabandis a pretty fair achievement on the Wahlberg genre scale." Christopher Lloyd Herald-Tribune notes that, "On most any level of serious consideration, the film isn’t a particularly good movie. Its plot twists telegraph themselves pretty clearly, and every performer other than Wahlberg is only afforded a few scenes to piece together any depth to their characters. But darn it, I just couldn’t help having fun.... Contraband may not be anybody’s idea of great filmmaking, but with its scene-stealing cast, a few clever potboiler scenes and another sturdy performance from Wahlberg, it left me pleasantly snookered." Others were not so kind. Mike Scott The Times-Picayune says of Walberg, while he's capable of comedy, "... one gets the feeling he's more at home squinting severely at the camera or hissing threats while slowly crushing some greaseball's windpipe." But what we are left with, "is a movie that is about as nourishing as the Junior Mints and nachos available at the theater snack bar." James Verniere Boston Herald praises a bright spot in the film, when he observes, "... these just-when-I-thought-I-was-out-they-pull-me-back-in plots are a dime a dozen. But once aboard the good ship whatever, carrying a massive cargo of containers from New Orleans to Panama, the film picks up, no doubt in large part because the icy-eyed skipper is played by J.K. Simmons.... [its also got] plenty of tasty New Orleans-based music in its score." |
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