4/2/2023 0 Comments Cast of contraband![]() My point isn't that Barry Ackroyd is a consummate professional and a fine craftsman, although if it was, it still would have been worth the saying. Ackroyd did not have to do this, but he did maybe because he was paid to, maybe because honor drove him to, maybe because he's too good to allow something crappy to come out under his name. ![]() And yet, this film does, in fact, boast great cinematography, not the showy noir kind of cinematography that some might have thought to use, but an appealingly rough-hewn mixture of artificial lighting and pointedly graceless handheld camera that magnificently captures the rhythm and texture of the film's unrefined mise en scène. It's quite another to do that in a quiet little Mark Wahlberg vehicle that is not, by any stretch of the imagination, going to end up in the best-of-year conversations next January. But it's not as far off as you might think, and here's why it strike me as important: it's one thing to do great work in a Ken Loach or Paul Greengrass film, or in an Iraq War picture made with enough integrity to eventually dance into a healthy clutch of awards. Not that Contraband is his masterpiece, or something absolutely ridiculous like that. And for all that, I don't think I was ever quite as blown away by just how good Ackroyd is at his job until I'd seen what he made out of Contraband, a working class thriller about smugglers that is the absolute epitome of the words "a January release". To those who care to look, it's been obvious for a while that he's a talented man and his presence a welcome sight, even if he's not the most versatile kid on the block. ![]() Meanwhile the film's entire premise is undermined and suspect: Chris appears easily capable of physically and emotionally intimidating bad guy Briggs whenever he chooses to, calling into question the entire reason why Chris re-enters the life of crime to save Andy's hide.ĭespite some shadings of style and no shortage of talent in the cast, Contraband is overplotted and underwhelming.Barry Ackroyd, in more than a quarter of a century as a cinematographer, has been responsible for many fine pieces of work, with at least a handful of award-worthy turns in projects like The Wind That Shakes the Barley, Green Zone, and The Hurt Locker (for which he received an Oscar and ASC nomination). The investigation of the crash starts and ends with one customs official waving her arms about. Earlier, Captain Camp's massive cargo ship slams into the docks, with several containers toppling to shore, all as part of an engine sabotage plot to gain Chris some on-shore time. A bloody hold-up of an armoured truck in Panama City leaves multiple fatalities strewn across the road but seemingly no ill-effects or consequences for Chris and his buddies. The action scenes are shoehorned into the film for the sake of injecting gratuitous energy boosts. ![]() The tried and tested "one more job" cliche is fine if deployed correctly, but here the job becomes a convoluted make-it-up-on-the-fly mess of shifting objectives and multiple double-crosses among a bunch of crooks, none of them likeable enough to matter. Nothing goes according to plan, as Captain Camp becomes suspicious and Briggs sets his sights on terrorizing Kate.ĭirected by Baltasar Kormákur and an adaptation of an Icelandic film, Contraband is overstuffed with secondary characters, jumps around to numerous side-quests, and stretches credibility well past the snapping point. Once there, they tangle with the heavily armed gang of local criminal Gonzalo (Diego Luna), who is planning his own heist of expensive artwork. Simmons) and arrange to pick up high quality counterfeit bills during a stop in Panama City. Chris and his friend Danny (Lukas Haas) go back into business for one final run to make enough money to pay off Briggs, leaving Kate and the kids in the care of Chris' good friend and former partner-in-crime Sebastian (Ben Foster).Ĭhris, Danny and Andy board the cargo ship of Captain Redmond Camp (J.K. Kate's younger brother Andy (Caleb Landry Jones) is caught up in a customs raid and has to ditch a cargo of drugs overboard, infuriating gangster Tim Briggs (Giovanni Ribisi), who paid $700,000 for the shipment. In New Orleans, Chris Farraday (Mark Wahlberg) is a retired smuggler, now happily married to Kate (Kate Beckinsale) and the father of two kids. An complicated crime thriller, Contraband is murky, muddled and mindless.
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