CONTRABAND

Raise your hand if you’re growing as weary as I am of the following movie plot: main character must engage in (insert illegal activity of your choice here) to save his family. Unfortunately, Contraband is yet another forgettable entry in that ever-growing genre that will, no doubt, cause more hands to shoot into the air.

This time, the man in question is Chris Farraday (Mark Wahlberg), a one-time renowned smuggler, who’s forced back into the “business” when his halfwit of a brother-in-law (Caleb Landry Jones) botches a cocaine run and winds up hugely in debt with violent, tattooed crimelord Tim Griggs (Giovanni Ribisi, adopting the most ridiculous voice since Nicolas Cage’s nasal falsetto in Peggy Sue Got Married). With his family in Griggs’ crosshairs, Chris offers to do “one last run” (*groan*) to Panama pick up millions in counterfeit bills.

Naturally, nothing goes remotely smoothly and, soon, our perpetually scowling hero is eyebrow-deep in angry criminals, botched plans, unexpected cocaine and the increasingly infuriating blunderings of his moronic brother-in-law, who deserves every single ass-kicking he gets in this film, frankly.

A remake of the Icelandic film Reykjavik-Rotterdam, Contraband lacks a lot of the urgency, imagination and, oddly enough, heart a movie like this needs to really connect with an audience. Is there ever any doubt how the whole thing will end? Does anyone in the audience really not know, well in advance, how the story will play out? The answer to both questions is no which, in turn, means the proceedings take on a very tedious pace, especially with chase sequences and bloody shootouts that seem to drag on endlessly. More importantly, as my movie-going pal pointed out, in order for this kind of story to work, you need to like the main character, and his or her bad-behavior-in-the-name-of-noble-action needs to feel justified. Neither are necessarily the case here.

There isn’t any warmth to Wahlberg’s Chris, and we’ve seen him play this type of character before. There are no added layers or complexities, and the film’s final scenes actually make him seem greedy and self-serving. Ribisi’s Griggs is a grade-A asshat, and the brother-in-law who causes all this angst is, as mentioned, completely unsympathetic thanks to his clueless antics. Even Kate Beckinsale, in a thankless role as Chris’ wife, is wasted in the kind of one-note, set-dressing part that a lesser-known talent could easily have filled.

Unfortunately (for me), the film is also shot in that nauseating hand-held, rapid-cut style that made me queasy within the first 20 minutes and didn’t let up throughout. I understand filmmakers believe this sort of shooting gives their projects some kind of raw, gritty feel, but it just makes more visually sensitive viewers like me want to close their eyes. Or hurl.

Or both.