Action film proves what's old is new again

Just when he thought he was out, he gets pulled back in. Poor guy. It’s got to be tough to be a major drug smuggler trying to go legit, especially with a brother-in-law who still has his inept hands in the shady business. That’s what Contraband is about.

Mark Wahlberg is Chris Farrady, a guy who used to do bad things but is trying really hard to do good things, especially now that he has a family. Living as a security alarm installer isn’t that exciting but it gives him and his wife, Kate (Kate Beckinsale), a sense of stability. That stability lasts only until Kate’s brother, Andy (Caleb Landry Jones), gets himself mixed up in the same shady business and he finds himself desperately needing a professional to get him out of trouble. Poor Chris gets pulled back in, all in the name of helping out the ne’er-do-well in-law. Andy’s boss, Tim Briggs (Giovanni Ribisi), needs to collect on $700,000.

No one carries that kind of change around in their coin purse so Chris decides that the only way to make good on the debt is to run contraband and smuggle $10 million in fake money.

If Meryl Streep was in this movie then it might have been bearable. If Sean Penn was in it then it might have had a political message about crime. If Jason Statham was in it then maybe the action might have been more … active.

But no, no and no. This is Mark Wahlberg’s movie and it’s about as serious as a heart attack that turns out to actually be indigestion. This is an ardent action movie that really wanted to be an intense crime thriller with smouldering dialogue. This is a family drama that desperately wanted to wow audiences with its sparse and modest action sequences.

Actually, it’s a kind of meta-movie because it’s really about Wahlberg himself trying to go legit. For years now, he has been relegated to second and third (and fourth) rate movies where he either gets to be a good guy or a bad guy, just so long as he carries a gun most of the time. Max Payne was dreadful. We Own the Night was tolerable. Shooter was entirely forgetful. Wahlberg can only play a tough guy and we all know that tough guys don’t read poetry by Blake, right? They only give stern looks before they punch or shoot people in order to protect their families.

Wahlberg even goes so far as to work behind the scenes as well on this attempt at modernizing Godfather Part III. His record is pretty good as a producer with Entourage, Boardwalk Empire and The Fighter. He manages to score some solid supporting talent, most if not all of whom are largely wasted in the endeavour: Ben Foster, J.K. Simmons, Lukas Haas, David O’Hara, Kate Beckinsale … all of their roles are disposable. It’s especially deplorable how underused Giovanni Ribisi is here, considering his versatility and psychological depth to damaged characters.

Sadly, Contraband is also a throwaway movie, a bland remake of the 2009 Icelandic film called ReykjavĂ­k-Rotterdam. There’s nothing memorable about it except for a host of otherwise respectable performers wasting all of their time and talent on a shipwreck like this. Audiences are better off watching Godfather Part III.