David O'ConnellContraband
February 21st 2012 03:47
You know the feeling: déjà vu. We’ve been here before: the whiff of inevitable failure in an all-too familiar set-up relayed with a depressing lack of originality; a flawed hero surrounded by stock characters, the wife and children in peril, the criminal act of altruism that will sever the ties to an evil, gun-toting bad guy with a lack of appreciation for the art of verbal intercourse. The supposedly suspenseful scenario is gradually ‘developed’ in which nothing goes smoothly: this is Contraband. Or 5000 other movies just like it.
Mark Wahlberg, a vocal advocate of a Catholic family unit, must have seen the minimal attraction of Aaron Guzikowski’s screenplay and pounced. But the framework holding this bland, tiresome drama to the ground is fragile and as the narrative unfolds, barely a moment resembling a believable reality emerges. Wahlberg is Chris Farraday, a former smuggler now settled into a sedate New Orleans life setting up security systems for suburban plebs. But when his dim-witted punk brother-in-law Andy (Caleb Landry Jones) tosses a shipment of drugs overboard to avoid capture by customs, his mortality is jeopardised by the sleazy criminal, Briggs (Giovanni Ribisi), to whom he owes the incoming stash.
Naturally Chris must interject on his unfortunate relative’s behalf, offering to pay back Briggs’ loss. Only to do so he has to gather together his old crew and head up the Panama Canal (as you do) to buy a truckload of counterfeit cash. Around him allegiances split, eventually parting like members of the paying audience in search of a cinema experience not reeking of contrivance and counter-contrivance.
Contraband (2012) paints its moral borders in broad neon strokes, from the generic family scenes establishing the unit’s integrity, to the depiction of ruthless, voracious greed existing for no reason other than to maintain the bout’s black-and-white corners. Wahlberg’s Farraday is a walking cliché, falling victim to that damnable temptation of another tireless movie cliché: a need to complete One Last Job to ensure salvation for the sake of family and hearth.
Implausibilities abound in a film that summons rage with some regularity but is surprisingly bloodless. So little time is spent on maintaining credibility that the film should might as well have been animated and then served with extra dollops of blood, guts or anything to dispel the torpor that grips the frames of those attempting to outlast 105 minutes of undiluted mediocrity.
Ben Foster slums it for the paycheck as Farraday's best mate, whilst Ribisi gets to turn up the volume without generating a single legitimate scare. Can anyone remember a film where Kate Beckinsale was anything other than ornamental? For all involved it’s a thankless task playing second fiddle to Wahlberg, his dour, overly-severe demeanour eclipsing all who stray within his sphere. He's a dogged actor but not a particularly talented one.
For Icelandic director Baltasar Kormakur (who was the main actor in the original film, 2008’s Reykjavik-Rotterdam), this is a curious leap: upon viewing the final product, he must be wondering – as will his miniscule audience – how he journeyed from offbeat homeland debut 100 Reykjavik twelve years ago to here, a moment of time I've already forgotten.
Contraband opens in Australian cinemas on Thursday, February 23.
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