Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		2.5
Overall		3.5

Contraband Blu-ray Movie Review

Universal's AV presentation saves this uneven remake from a stint in the bargin bin...

Reviewed by Kenneth Brown April 9, 2012

Take a moment and spend some time with Contraband's theatrical trailer. Finished? Congratulations, you've just watched Contraband in its entirety, with almost all of its snubnosed twists, lockjawed turns and nonsensical genre jimmying intact. You also just saved yourself two hours and the cost of a rental (or more, depending on how pickable your pocket is these days). "But Ken, ol' buddy," you might say. "I like Big Dumb Fun. I'm a sucker for this kinda flick. It's even got Mark Wahlberg and Giovanni Ribisi, and I loooove me some Marky Mark and Cory Kupkus. This movie's made for me." And I'm sure there are some of you out there, God love ya, with the ability to switch off your brain, kick back with a bowl of Jiffy Pop, and appreciate a big, dumb genre jock like Contraband for everything it has to offer, hackneyed screenplay, mindless dialogue, distended performances and all. Just don't be surprised if you start asking yourself how a movie made for you could go so terribly, terribly wrong. Wahlberg's latest is a mess, from start to finish, beat to beatdown, script to screen. How bad is it? Chances are those who mount a defense will include some variation of the modern moviegoer's go-to rebuttal: "oh come on, it's not that bad."

"I've got to try and fix this. Trust me, I know what I'm doing."

Contraband is essentially a humorless cross between Gone in 60 Seconds and Star Wars: Jettisoned Cargo; a mangled mashup in which ex-smuggler Chris Farraday (Wahlberg) races to raise $700,000 for a sadistic gangster (Ribisi) after his wife's younger brother, Andy (Caleb Landry Jones), dumped a shipment of drugs into the ocean at the first sign of an Imperial cruiser... er, U.S. Customs ship. Chris knows the only way to come up with so much cash in just two weeks is to wander off the straight-n-narrow, return to his old smugglin' ways and board a cargo ship bound for Panama. Before heading out to sea, though, Chris tasks his friend Sebastian (Ben Foster, in a characteristically thankless role in an uncharacteristically mediocre film) with watching over his wife, Kate, (Kate Beckinsale) and his two sons. Alas, Sebastian is having money problems of his own, meaning Chris inadvertantly left his family in more danger than they were already in. Will Chris be able to save Andy from the N'Orleans thug-mafia? Will Kate figure out Sebastian is playing her and her husband? Will Chris and Kate make it out of their harrowing crises alive? More importantly, will anyone care?

What might have been a semi-coherent Gone in 60 Seconds knock-off, or even a psuedo-functional heist flick, soon devolves into a manic kill-or-be-killed shipping-lanes action dud in the vein of Running Scared (a hastily strung comparison that should scare everyone away but will no doubt vault Contraband to the top of a few must-see lists). Two competing plot lines splinter, split and shatter; two competing movies battle it out under the same 110-minute banner; two competing actors, Wahlberg and Beckinsale fail to elevate the story, inspire their fellow actors, or contain the film-school chaos of the shoot. The performances are all over the map -- understated, overblown, underwhelming, overreaching -- all of which boils down to overacting and under-delivering. Director Baltasar Kormákur, working from an unwieldy script by Aaron Guzikowski (in turn, an adaptation of Reykjavík-Rotterdam, a 2008 Icelandic film starring Kormákur himself), teeters and totters from one end of the genre spectrum to the other, tossing in whatever looks cool, 'splodes big, and feels edgy. Unfortunately, "cool" amounts to gritty late-90s euro-gangster cinema, "big" amounts to frantically edited action heaped on more frantically edited action, and "edgy" amounts to a gritty cache of familiar genre weapons. Contraband bleeds convention, and muddled, stupefyingly outdated convention at that.

It starts out well enough, I suppose. Wahlberg is at his most Wahlbergian, Ribisi seems to be having a bit of nasally fun, and Foster and Beckinsale offer a glimmer of hope that Contraband is going somewhere interesting. But then Kormákur and his crew begin tossing good sense, logic and sound reasoning overboard, although why they felt the need to throw over every fundamental they laid their hands on is beyond me. It doesn't help that pacing becomes increasingly erratic as the endgame nears port, or that the jarring shifts from Chris to Kate to Sebastian only exacerbates every other issue. There's a solid genre pic hidden in the cargo hold of Contraband, although it would take an act of God or a move of Tony Scott to uncover it. Kormákur doesn't quite have a handle on his budget, his actors or his vision; his brightest flashes and loudest bangs are mere diversions, and his attempts at more subdued drama just lie there on the screen, as if the first take was the only take Kormákur needed. Yes, yes, I know. Someone somewhere will go cuckoo for Kormákur's cocoa puffs. Honestly, I hope you're that guy. Otherwise, you'll find yourself wishing you had held onto your cash or smuggled a better flick into your Blu-ray player. And, contrary to popular belief, reviewers generally hate being right when it comes to warning people away from subpar films. We get no joy from seeing you suffer.

Contraband Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Battered primaries, abusive shadows, and blunt-force contrast. Yep, it's another dark, gritty actioner shot to make audiences say, "wait, what's going on over there?" Even so, Universal's 1080p/AVC-encoded video presentation strikes its intended target with pinpoint precision. Detail is exceedingly revealing, at least once you get past the fact that Kormákur and DP Barry Ackroyd's stark shadows devour anything and everything they touch. Scars, pores, stubble and any other facial feature and fine texture that leaps into the equally stark light is captured with razor sharp clarity, edge definition is crisp and exacting (with only an occasional hint of high-noon haloing), and delineation is non-existent, which is a good thing in this case as that's part of the aesthetic Kormákur and Ackroyd are aiming for. Color accuracy and skintone saturation fall in perfect line with their vision as well, and there isn't anything about the subsequent encode that wavers, deviates or departs from that vision. Grain, heavy and distinct, is intact; artifacting, banding and aliasing are nowhere to be found; and the crush that dominates the darkness, though certainly distracting, shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone. In short, this is Contraband, pure and unaltered.

Contraband Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Contraband's DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track is determined to do one thing: kick your teeth in. Dialogue gets overrun now and again, but rarely at crucial points in the film. Voices are largely clear and intelligible throughout (insofar as Kormákur's frenetic sound design allows), and prioritization is more than impressive considering the chaos that erupts during action sequences. Gunfire, explosions, car crashes and intense chases issue a call to arms to the LFE channel and rear speakers, a call each one is more than happy to answer. Low-end thooms and booms command attention, shipping crates grumble and groan under the strain of their own weight, engines roar with conviction, and automatic weapons punctuate the proceedings with authority. And while the soundfield is nothing short of frenzied and furious, directional effects will turn heads, enviornmental ambience will draw in anyone in the room, and pans hurtle from speaker to speaker with such ferocity that action junkies will be left with a wicked smile on their faces. Yes, it all favors brash bombast over subtle nuance, but so does Contraband. Cinephiles will probably scoff at the heavy handedness of it all, but fans will be thrilled with every sinewy salvo.

Contraband Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• U-Control Picture-in-Picture (HD): This fairly uneventful Picture-in-Picture experience provides interviews and behind-the-scenes content during portions of ten of the film's nineteen chapters. U-Control tracks have a reputation for being light on material, though, and this one is no different. I'd almost rather have no PiP experience than a spotty, disappointing one.
• Audio Commentary: Producer/director Baltasar Kormákur and co-producer Evan Hayes aren't nearly as animated or excited as they are in the "Under the Radar" featurette, but it's clear they're both pleased with the end result. The commentary is worth listening to if you enjoyed the film, but it doesn't offer much insight beyond an unremarkable, scene-by-scene account of the production. It does feature one unintentionally amusing revelation: Kormákur and Hayes looked to The Deer Hunter when making key decisions.
• Deleted Scenes (HD, 6 minutes): Twelve brief deleted and alternate scenes are available -- "I Did It," "Dancing Ninja," "I Haven't Yet," "I Don't Need to Be Reminded," "Crew Search," "Broken Seal," "Right About There," "Oil Cans," "Sebastian Leaves," "Searching," "I have Never Run Drugs" and "Looking for Me, Captain?" -- few of which would have improved the final film.
• Under the Radar: The Making of Contraband (HD, 17 minutes): "Action. Action. ACTION!" So begins Contraband's behind-the-scenes featurette, which hones in on Kormákur's remake ("I don't really see it as a remake," says the director), the characters and story ("it's really steeped in reality," assures Ribisi), the action ("I went through a little bit of a tumble," chuckles Caleb Landry Jones), and its shoot ("welcome to Contraband, Kate!" quips second stunt coordinator Darrin Prescott after wrapping Beckinsale in plastic sheeting and covering her in wet concrete).
• Reality Factor: The Stunts and Action of Contraband (HD, 8 minutes): Action, action and more action. So drills home the second of Contraband's production featurettes, which shoves the film's stuntwork and action choreography to center stage.

Contraband Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Here we go again. Bad film, great AV presentation. While Contraband will certainly find its way into its fans' hands (as camp-splitting actioners so easily do), it could have been much, much better. Somewhere, lurking below the surface, there's a Tony Scott film I probably would have responded to positively. But in the hands of director Baltasar Kormákur and screenwriter Aaron Guzikowski, it's everything you'd expect and everything it shouldn't be. Its only saving grace? A top notch Blu-ray release, complete with a precise and proficient video transfer, a neighbor-rousing DTS-HD Master Audio track, and a serviceable selection of special features. I'd personally recommend avoiding Contraband, but if curiosity compels you or a deep love of Mark Walhberg drives you to take the plunge, Universal's AV presentation will, if nothing else, serve as a reward.