In the traditional Bruce Willis vein, the appeal of Mark Wahlberg as an action hero comes from his effortless fusion of tough guy gravitas and everyman appeal. From one angle, Wahlberg has a lived-in, rugged exterior that gives off an authentic vibe of testosterone, yet one can’t also deny his guy-next-door vibe, which is the tip-off to his likeability. From his rough-and-tumble upbringing to his mature ascent into fatherhood, Wahlberg is like a guy whose a delight to have over at a suburban BBQ yet could handle himself aggressively in a gritty bar brawl. He’s a thinking man’s brute avatar, and that makes you want to follow him into almost any action-movie enterprise. The proof of this appeal is evident in Contraband, a vapid yet sustainable action product that ultimately overcomes its frivolous nature with a great assist from Wahlberg’s no-nonsense professionalism.
Contraband stars Wahlberg as Chris Farraday, a former contrabandist who now lives a quiet life in New Orleans with his beautiful wife, Kate (Kate Beckinsale) and his two children. Chris used to be an expert at smuggling illegal goods in shipping boats, but now spends his days installing security alarms for paying customers. Things take a turn for the worst, however, when its revealed that Kate’s brother, Andy (Caleb Landry Jones), was involved in a smuggling job gone wrong. While smuggling drugs on a cargo ship, he was forced to drop the product in the ocean to avoid pressure from customs. This infuriates Tim Briggs (Giovanni Ribisi), the psychotic gangster who recruited Andy for the job, and he demands that Andy pays him back for the lost goods or he’ll be killed. Chris realizes that he must return to his old criminal ways to save Andy.
The plan: smuggle $10 million in fake bills from Panama to New Orleans with the help of Chris’ old crew. Soon enough, Chris finds himself and his comrades on a cargo ship under the strict, watchful eye of Captain Camp (J.K. Simmons). Once the ship docks in Panama, Chris and his crew will have very limited time to obtain the money and sneak it onto the ship without anyone noticing. Of course, things don’t go as originally planned, throwing Chris into the clutches of a ruthless crime lord (Diego Luna) and in the midst of a personal betrayal he didn’t see coming.
Compared with other flicks in the pantheon of heist films, Contaband is pretty dense, but its rarely boring or obtrusive. It’s not the most exciting play on the One-Last-Heist picture, but its quite far from being the worst. One unique angle here is the use of the cargo shipping world as the backdrop for the film’s shenanigans. The day-to-day life of a ship crew and the clever ways Chris and his cohorts hide their ulterior motives on the boat adds crumbs of interest, yet this angle probably isn’t as lived-in and atmospheric as it could be. Plus once the complicated time table of this heist starts counting down, the race-against-the-clock isn’t as tense and dangerous as it should be. If the heist had the pulse-pounding urgency of, say, Inception’s head-spinning time frame, then a serious jolt of adrenaline could’ve livened this routine exercise up.
One odd tidbit of Hollywood deja vu reveals that the film’s director, Baltasar Kormakur, was also the star of the original film that inspired this American incarnation, Reykjavik-Rotterdam. Why would an actor repeat himself in the same movie scenario, with a Hollywood actor filling his shoes no less? Perhaps Kormakur wants to finally make his mark on Hollywood and he figured indulging in a world he was ultra-familiar with would make him look like a confident pro. I personally enjoyed Roger Ebert’s theory that Kormakur is using this remake as “a demonstration that many stars believe they could direct this crap themselves if they ever had the chance.” As an action director, he proves to be competent and inoffensive. He moves things at a brisk pace, never lingering or dragging things out. He gets the logical economy out of each scene, then hurries along to the next one with little fuss. Even the script’s action-junkie indulges seem surprisingly grounded. He has quite a ways to go if he wants to reach Kathryn Bigelow’s status, but at least now he’s sobering and sensible.
Wahlberg, as usual, proves to be a worthy tour guide through a tough guy enterprise. He’s a lot more stoic and relaxed here than usual, but thats part of the appeal. He is keenly aware of the fact that trying too hard to look tough very much produces the opposite effect, so his levelheaded focus is rather refreshing. What obviously got him jazzed about this project is the fact that his smuggling soldier is also a devoted family man. Planning a heist can resemble planning a Hollywood production in more ways than one, so Wahlberg here gets to work out his stresses of being both a Hollywood player and a loving patriarch. A scene in which Chris discusses details of his heist plan while helping his kids with their homework definitely holds a special resonance with him. It takes a delightful cinematic understanding to find real life resonance in a preposterous heist scenario, and Wahlberg’s dedication to the material makes things all the more enjoyable.
Wahlberg is also helped by the fact that he’s surrounded by supporting players who are trying on generic roles and overcompensating with their efforts. Giovanni Ribisi is in full method display as a southern fried sleazebag, and his dedicated sliminess makes him a lot more fun here than he is in most pictures. Ben Foster is a troubled head-case as always, but he’s more lightened-up here than usual. It’s always wonderful to see Diego Luna in anything, and him convincing us he’s a psychotic crime lord just allows us to delight in his resourcefulness. Of course Kate Beckinsale is beautiful and effective, for she’s way overqualified to play such a thankless role. I kind of wonder why the producers didn’t just give the role to an up-and-coming pretty face who could have used the screen time.
January is notoriously regarded as a dumping ground for mediocre releases, allowing Oscar-hopefuls of the previous year room to breathe at the box office. If you’re a sentimental moviegoer like myself, then you probably can delight in such hokey nonsense the way Quentin Tarantino used to relish grindhouse garbage. As far as early-year trash goes, you can do a whole lot worse than Contraband. You can’t say it was made without motivation, and you kind of dig its aspiration towards dignity. When he’s out to be a serious actor, Wahlberg can dish out treasures like in The Departed and The Fighter, yet Wahlberg with a gun can be a hell-of-a-lot-of-fun as well, something Contraband effectively vindicates.
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