Mark Wahlberg still has that authentic altar-boy/hoodlum look but the movie gives him nothing to do with it.
In this film image released by Universal Pictures, Mark Wahlberg is shown in a scene from "Contraband." (AP Photo/Universal Pictures, Patti Perret)“Contraband” TWO STARS
Rated: R for violence, strong language, and drug and alcohol abuse
Running time: 109 minutes
Mark Wahlberg’s new action picture is called “Contraband,” but it’s really about a plot to ship some high-end funny money into the country. So why didn’t they call it “Counterfeit”?
Because they knew it fit.
There’s nothing real about this movie – not the relationships, not the accents, not the plot twists. It’s the Hollywood version of a Canal St. knockoff – fake brandnames plastered over sloppy workmanship.
That’s a shame because one of the real brandnames here – Mark Wahlberg – was really beginning to stand for something. He was foul and funny in “The Departed,” tried hard in “The Lovely Bones” and provided a solid center to “The Fighter.”
But Wahlberg has always looked at his career as a business and that means making some calculated decisions – and apparently, right now, he felt it was past time to shore up his valuable action-hero cred with a beer-and-biceps action picture.
“Contraband,” however, is not it.
Based on a 2008 Icelandic picture that never got a theatrical release here – and directed by one of that movie’s stars – it’s the story of a reformed smuggler who’s settled down. But then he gets extorted into doing One Last Job.
As far as crime movies go, this scenario is so old it needs a walker. And nothing he
re particularly jazzes it up.
Not the New Orleans locations (peopled, as they are, with characters who all sound like they got bused in from Dorchester). Not the story (which fails to provide a caper movie’s two essentials – a colorful gang and an interesting scheme). And certainly not the direction, which can barely keep the camera in focus, let alone figure where to point it.
As for the actors, Wahlberg does his patented Andy Samberg impression, nodding his head in dully concerned, sweetly sincere incomprehension. He still has that authentic altar-boy/hoodlum look – he always will – but the movie gives him nothing to do with it.
Giovanni Ribisi overacts as usual but is at least entertaining. Ben Foster doesn’t overact for once and isn’t. Kate Beckinsale has little to do but get beaten up, and wait for her next “Underworld” movie.
When the gang goes south, things briefly pick up with a crazy Latin American shoot-out that wouldn’t be out of place in the upcoming (and better) “Miss Bala.” And as the angry captain of a freighter, J.K. Simmons regularly delights (and even remembers his accent).
But, frankly, Mark Wahlberg has outgrown movies like this. And so have we.