Review of Contraband (2012) by Thedrauch — 03 Aug 2012

Contraband ends up being all of the things expected of an action/thriller January release. It is a performance vehicle for any A-lister (in this case, Mark Wahlberg, whose role seems to be custom made for him), it is confusing and far-fetched, it has it's share of thrilling moments, and it is easily forgotten, but not entirely painlessly.

Contraband is basically a genre film, a heist pic that has the overall tone of a reversed Ocean's movie. But that trilogy had a far more easygoing nature about it, while still being hard to follow and absurd.

This movie is all too serious and in the finale, it takes a tonal U-turn and becomes light-hearted, betraying itself, as if the past hour-and-a-half didn't happen. It becomes oddly watchable before that, but otherwise Contraband is just toss-away entertainment.