Contraband

Contraband is just about as predictable as you might expect from the trailer, but is also surprisingly more enjoyable than expected. It also confirms the recent dearth of Hollywood creativity in genres they once ruled, as this film which feels so American is actually a remake of Icelandic thriller Reykjavik Rotterdam.

Mark Wahlberg plays Chris Farraday an ex- master smuggler who is forced into the ever familiar one last job in order to extricate his brother-in-law (Caleb Landry-Jones) from a debt to drug dealers (Giovanni Ribisi) he was smuggling. From there on the twists and turns are fairly predictable as three smuggled cargos end up being juggled through a sea of mishaps and betrayals. The film can't really decide what it wants to be - at times there is a real menace to it (especially when Ribisi is threatening Kate Beckinsale (Farraday's wife) in the film's nastiest moments). At other times it goes for a twisty kind of playfulness and at others still for out and out action.

There is a strong cast - but none of them are really stretching themselves - we've seen Wahlberg's blue-collar criminal hero, Ribisi's redneck psycho and Ben Foster's redneck with issues all before. Beckinsale is underused, as is Diego Luna, whilst JK Simmons comes close to stealing the movie as the freighter captain on whose boat the smuggling takes place.

Somehow, though, it all kind of works and director Baltasar Kormakur (who was also producer on the original) keeps things moving quickly enough that you don't have time to think about why nobody notices huge bundles of forged dollars floating in the middle of a major waterway.

Overall - 6.5/10 Solid but predictable genre piece that is surprisingly enjoyable.