Review: http://www.worldofkj.com/article.php?i=593

Contraband is a poorly directed bit of foolishness.

Luckily, the actors are worth watching - - Marky Mark rocks! ...and Giovanni Ribisi comes close to topping his career high as Phoebe's half brother on Friends, while Kate Beckinsale goes against type in a bravura performance as a blonde, the hardest acting a brunette will ever have to do!

Even more fortunately for us viewers, after heaps of creaky plot and questionable stylings, we are treated to...


...and danged if that doesn't lead us into that concluding iconic image of ...


...and forget the many transgressions of Contraband.


5 out of 5.

I would have liked it more if the movie had some balls and Kate Beckinsale would have died. Instead, she serves as a banal damsel in distress. Why was Marky Mark not arrested for smuggling drugs, robbery, and grand theft auto? Giovanni Ribisi would roll over on him in a minute.

C.

Serviceable and keeps your attention throughout, which is more than can be said for some thrillers studios throw into theaters in the middle of January. B-

Random observation: I found the use of the profanity in this movie slightly distracting. It felt as if the writers leaned on it a tad too heavily to convey how -intense- and -macho- these characters are. The f word in particular often felt oddly shoehorned into lines.

And Wahlberg's one line--more or less, "Your wife wanted Panamanian dog shit to rub in her cunt, but I ran out of time"--has to be the most looney tunes bit of crassness since Joan Allen said, "Okay, cocksucker. Fuck with me, and we'll see who shits on the sidewalk."

I disagree.

The language was entirely appropriate for this type of action smuggler b-movie - - Wahlberg's quoted line was delivered in his patented laid back style which accentuated both the power and the humor of the statement.

The Joan Allen line from the underrated Death Race was just the opposite - - delivered in a intentionally over the top style going against her usual character. As KJ's own zingaling declares:


Perhaps it's time for you to take a break from these types of adult b-movies and watch something a little more age appropriate.

Jeez, Bradley. You pulled the Bieber card on me!

I'm not anti-profanity in movies, lol. It can be downright beautiful (see: Wahlberg in The Departed) or add to a character or any other number of wonders. But it just didn't sit right with me here. The way it was used just hit me the wrong way. For example, I grew slightly tired of the characters constantly calling each other "bitches." We get it, they're macho and not a bunch of gay women bitches, move on.

How do you remember these things, bradley? Don't you have, like, anything else to think about?

This was decent, btw.

Very average film but Marky Mark makes some of it work. Took risks that ended up not paying off fully to make it stand out from the crowd. **

Contraband

Pretty generic and lame crap, to be honest. It had the makings of a good crime thriller, but it was far too safe and badly acted. Kate Beckinsale is hot, but she didn't excite me here. One of Wahlberg's worst. Ribisi was ok, though he should have been more bad ass and have been given a true comeuppance for his actions.

D+

B

It doesn't reinvent the wheel, but it is a solid action thriller through and through, featuring Mark Wahlberg in a role just right for him, a blue collar criminal with principles. It was never bored throughout the film, though its twists are mostly predictable. Unfortunately the filmmakers chickened out at the film's ending. It would have been much braver (not to mention more realistic) if they had let Kate Beckinsale's character die. It is a movie I gladly rewatch every once in a while, but that will never rise far above solid, yet generic fare.