Movie Review: 'Contraband' a so-so thriller with Mark Wahlberg as macho-in-chief

The action-thriller "Contraband," now playing at the Hollywood Horizon Stadium in Stateline, stars Mark Wahlberg as Chris Farraday, a reformed former ace smuggler living in New Orleans with with wife Kate (Kate Beckinsale) and two sons (largely ignored) making home burglar alarms as a business.

Then his brother-in-law Ben Foster (Sebastian Abney) screws up a drug deal and Chris has to step in to save him and his family from the drug boss Tim Briggs' (Giovanni Ribisi) murder threats.

Seems that the way to make up from the lost drugs is to smuggle counterfeit dollars out of Panama into New Orleans by a container cargo ship, commanded by Captain Camp (J.K. Simmons). Why the phony money? Who knows?

This is an old Hollywood plot line, the former crook gone straight but dragged back into the business. So Chris rounds up his old gang, joins the crew of a ship headed for Panama and goes through the usual gadgetry of preparing the ship for big bundles of phony money. How he gets the Panama printer to turn over bogus money isn't quite clear but it involves Chris and Co. helping with an armored car heist.

The plot is modestly complex, the script at times makes sense and the vision of a freighter crashing into a dock is about as interesting as anything else in the movie. Ribisi is a good bad guy and Kate Beckinsale is required to do little more than hustle her sons around and get beaned and almost buried in cement (what a waste of a decent actress!). Wahlberg is sufficiently macho to get through the role but it's time for him to move out of the genre where he hangs around the local bar with old pals.

Director Baltasar Kormakur helmed the film with lots of aerials of New Orleans and Panama and has redone a movie he did before as star in Europe.

This is pretty standard stuff for the January movie doldrums and there aren't a lot of thrills here and little in the way of surprises. Competent cast, good photography but it isn't likely to send you off as a tourist to Panama. Maybe New Orleans, but then Mardi Gras is almost over now.

The film is showing in a theater with those action moving seats but it isn't 3D so you save a couple of bucks. Big crowd on Friday and nobody was throwing empty popcorn bags at the screen.
--- Sam Bauman

Rated R, running time as merciful hour and 49 minutes.
Directed by Baltasar Kormakur
Written by Aaron Guzikowski
Based on the film “Reykjavik-Rotterdam,” written by Arnaldur Indridason and Oskar Jonasson
Director of photography: Barry Ackroyd
Edited by Elisabet Ronalds
Music by Clinton Shorter
Production design by Tony Fanning
Costumes by Jenny Eagan
Produced by Mark Wahlberg, Mr. Kormakur, Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner and Stephen Levinson
Released by Universal Pictures. Running time: 1 hour 49 minutes.

Cast:
Mark Wahlberg (Chris Farraday)
Kate Beckinsale (Kate Farraday)
Ben Foster (Sebastian Abney)
Giovanni Ribisi (Tim Briggs)
Lukas Haas (Danny Raymer)
Caleb Landry Jones (Andy)
Diego Luna (Gonzalo)
J. K. Simmons (Captain Camp)