When Kate’s (Kate Beckinsale) brother botches a drug smuggling job for Briggs (Giovanni Ribisi), her husband Chris (Mark Wahlberg) a retired smuggler swoops in for the rescue. Chris comes out of retirement to do a job that will get his brother-in-law off the hook with Briggs. Chris goes to prison to meet with his dad, a convicted smuggler, so that his dad can pull a few strings and get him work on a crooked container ship, with a crooked captain and a crooked crew.
The job, smuggle in $15 million in uncut U.S. counterfeit currency. So, off goes Chris, the brother-in-law and a make shift crew to Panama. Chris’ friend Sebastian (Ben Foster) stays behind to take care of Kate and the kids. Once they get to Panama, nothing goes as planned. The currency is not up to Chris’ standards, so he must go see a bad dude for a higher quality counterfeit. In the middle of the deal, Chris’ brother-in-law gets orders from Briggs to take the buy money to a drug dealer instead. That leaves Chris holding the bag. So, Chris goes off on an armored car robbery with the bad dude that coincidentally is happening right now. The armored car heist, for a Jackson Pollack painting, goes bad. Everyone is killed but Chris and his crew. Chris escapes with the $15 million and the Pollack painting. Kate’s brother also makes a successful drug buy. Chris gets it all back to the states, but how he does it is a little fuzzy.
SPOILER ALERT: Along the way, we discover that Kate’s brother and now Chris, owes Briggs. Briggs owes Sebastian. (Briggs and Sebastian both want to get up with Kate). Sebastian owes some other higher-up dude. After a series of double triple and quadruple crosses, Chris sells the $15 million, gets an appraisal on the Jackson Pollack and gets Briggs caught by the cops with the drugs all in time to save Kate from a Jimmy Hoffa burial (she has the loudest cell phone ring on earth - it can be heard over the sound of a running cement mixer from 40 yards).
Giovanni Ribisi gives another fine performance. Playing the drug dealer who lives in the projects is right in his wheel house. Kate Beckinsale was great (in a somewhat limited role) and Mark Wahlberg held his own. Contraband falls short because everything falls into place too easily. Chris is able to get a spot on the ship. Chris survives a multiple machine gun shootout while riding in the back of a pick-up truck. Not only do they come away with the money they went to Panama for, they also came back with the Pollack (worth $20 million on the black market) and the drugs. Chris was able to get the drugs off the boat without anyone finding out, even the audience.
I go to a movie like this to eat popcorn and be entertained. Was I entertained? Somewhat. For a January 13th release, should I have expected more? Probably not. I give Contraband two out of five airplanes.
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