Dir. Baltasar Kormákur
Retired smuggler leads happy home life with wife and kids. Retired smuggler’s relative bungles drug deal. Drug dealer threatens retired smuggler’s family. Smuggler leaves retirement, assembles a crew, and attempts to set matters right. Sound familiar? It is. It’s been done to death, but this week, the film happens to be titled Contraband, starring Mark Wahlberg.
I’ll admit, I have not seen Reykjavík-Rotterdam, the Icelandic film on which Contraband is based, but I suspect that something was lost in translation when the film was adapted for American audiences, namely its respect for originality. I presume the original had some artistic merit or else it would not have been Iceland’s submission for Best Foreign Film to the Academy in 2009. The only art you’ll find in this film is a stolen Jackson Pollock painting.
For all its predictability, Contraband’s pace and humour — courtesy of its formula-slavery — keep the film watchable, but unmemorable.
