Contraband

Another one of Mark Wahlbergs action films. Which is probably one of his better ones. The plot is interesting and has not been done 1000 times and the acting is good from the whole cast. This is actually one of the better action movies I have seen lately. The story line is very simple and straight forward but if your a fan of action movies this is right up your alley.

This movie is about an ex smuggler(Wahlberg) who has a brother in law that got mixed up with some drug dealers. In order to save his brother in laws life he must go to panama and smuggle back millions of dollars in counterfeit bills.

This movie is definitely worth a watch or two. It is very simple but the entertainment factor is there.

If you like movies where every principal character is a bad guy, then this movie will definitely be for you. Plausibility is thrown to the wind as the creators of this movie have a field day showing what happens when bad guys are in conflict with even badder guys. The problem with the story is that the "good" guy is really a bad guy who is trying to pass himself off as a good guy, which is so phony that even the other characters in the story don't believe it, and if they don't believe it, then don't expect the audience to believe it either. Mark Wahlberg is a wonderful actor and he proves it again in this movie. But he can't overcome his character's incomprehensible behavior. It's one thing for one brother to want to help out another brother - that is altruistic. However, it's something else entirely when the same brother does exactly the same thing that got the other brother into trouble. Nevertheless, there is some good acting and Kate Beckinsdale is as usual beautiful and probably played the most believable role.

If you've seen the trailer, you can already tell that Contraband really doesn't have anything new to offer as a film. It has a typical heist/revenge thriller plot with some thrills and good action sequences. However, Contraband manages to be a slightly better than your typical thriller.

Mark Wahlberg gives a really good performance and Giovanni Ribisi did a really great job as the films over-the-top villain. The film does a great job of getting down the gritty tone and gives the film a realistic feel to it. I also enjoyed how instead of being a straight out action flick, the film actually took time to develop what they had with the plot and show the whole set up of the heist.

For most of it's nearly 2 hour runtime, Contraband kept me entertained for the most part. It still suffers from it's expected flaws. The plot isn't exactly strong and is pretty convoluted and very predictable. I also didn't care for the way the film wrapped up.

Overall, there really isn't a whole lot about to say about Contraband, but I would highly recommend it to someone who is looking for a good rental. If you like Marky Mark, than it's worth a shot.

It was a really good movie ... I thoroughly enjoyed it.

The story gets progressively more complicated as the movie continues. Wahlberg does a great job filling the lead role and the bad guy's were good at their roles too.

Great action flick!

Mark Wahlberg is back to his roots in something he is good in and probably wants to be in. This is basically a smuggling movie with a bit of heist in it and it trying to go in a gritty direction when it comes to the smuggling business. So Chris Farraday(Mark Wahlberg) has a wife and kids and running a legal business until his wife's brother Andy tries to get into the smuggling business and screws it up. And gets in debt with Tim Briggs(Giovanni Ribisi) and so Chris has to get back into smuggling in order to pay off Andy's debt. So Chris Farraday is this big shot top of the top when it comes to smuggling back in the day, but he just makes obvious mistakes in this movie. For someone who gone a long way depending on his wits doesn't seem that bright in this movie sometimes. Kate Beckinsale is alright in this playing Chris's wife but nothing much, and her name is Kate in this as well. Ben Foster plays a friend of Chris Farraday and from his past movies he is pretty good at playing the sidekick/friend that is sorta complex and is unclear about his motives sometimes. And he plays that similar character well in this. The movie starts off alright and the smuggling mission is done alright but nothing new but the movie just seemed absurd and stupid when it came to Chris Farraday's family constantly getting threatened while Chris is away on the smuggling mission. Anyways there is just nothing new or innovative about this movie and there isn't really anything that will really grab your attention and interest from beginning to the end. Even the ending is super cliché, especially for a movie that does these sharp in and out camera shots to make it seem gritty. The movie just gets tiresome after about an hour and 15 minutes in. It's worth seeing if there isn't anything else that is good but nothing special either.

6.1/10