CONTRABAND: An Action Thriller Failure, But It's Not Mark Wahlberg's Fault

CONTRABAND (Dir. Baltasar Kormákur, 2012)

It’s not Mark Wahlberg’s fault that this film is such a forgettable failure of a action thriller.

Wahlberg shows up, punches the time clock, and puts in a workman like performance, but director Kormákur and screenwriter Aaron Guzikowski don’t give the man much to work with.

Based on the 2009 Icelandic film “Reykjavík-Rotterdam” (which starred Kormákur), “Contraband” has Wahlberg as a New Orleans family guy trying to go legit after years of smuggling, grand theft, and espionage.

Just when Wahlberg thought he was out, he’s pulled back into that world to pull off one last job involving millions in counterfeit bills, because his brother-in-law Caleb (Landry Jones),wife (Katie Beckinsale), and kids are being threatened by a sleazy shaky drug lord Giovanni Ribisi (even sleazier and shakier than his turn in last year's THE RUM DIARY which I didn’t think was possible).

So a lot of the movie is Wahlberg on a barge, helmed by the great character actor J.K. Simmons who is one of the film’s few plusses, to and from Panama, with precious little action or thrills to speak of. Back home, Ben Foster, as Wahlberg’s best friend, squirms through his role as a guy caught up in the scheme who we never believe that anybody would ever trust.

It’s tired faux gritty heist plots like this that make me appreciate more the 2 Boston set crime flicks that Ben Affleck has made (GONE BABY GONE, THE TOWN). Affleck's films certainly weren’t masterpieces, but they had a much better sense of character and tonality when it came to the working class townie tough guy milieu.

CONTRABAND has none of that, and it's too full of quick cuts which makes it seem like a giant trailer instead of a real movie, with no room for audience connection to anything but the bare basics of the uninteresting narrative.

There weren’t even enough instances of visceral violence to keep my mind from wandering.

I was so bored during this tedious slog that I imagined what if Wahlberg had played the lead in “We Bought A Zoo” instead of Matt Damon. It would be like the Saturday Night Live sketch with Andy Sandberg doing a dead-on Wahlberg talking to animals – “Hey, chicken, how's it hanging? A lot of people want to eat you, but I just want to talk to you, okay?”

That’s how bored I was.

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TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY: Gary Oldman Comes In From The Cold War

TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY (Dir. Tomas Alfredson, 2011)

“Don't trust anyone, especially not in the mainstream.”

This warning, which appears in the first few minutes of this film, may be overly familiar to anyone who has seen just about any paranoid political thriller, yet spoken by John Hurt as “Control”, the ailing head of MI6, it can't help but carry considerable weight.

That can also be said of much of the dialogue in this new adaptation of John le Carré’s 1974 novel (especially coming from the mouths of such refined Englishmen as Colin Firth, Tom Hardy, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Toby Jones), but in the case of Gary Oldman as British Intelligence officer George Smiley, its the long silences that are the most stirring.

In fact, it's a bit into the film before we even hear Oldman speak.

When the man finally does talk, his dulcet tones recall Alec Guiness, who portrayed Smiley 30 years ago, in a 1979 mini-series adaptation of le Carré’s book, and a 1982 followup Smiley's People.

In London in the early '70s, Oldman's Smiley comes out of enforced retirement to investigate allegations that there is a "mole, right at the top of the Circus." Meaning that a Soviet spy has long infiltrated the highest echelon of the Secret Intelligence service.

The title refers to the codenames given to the suspects: "Tinker" (Jones as the new Chief of the Circus), "Tailor" (Firth as Jones' Deputy), "Soldier", and "Poorman" (Ciarán Hinds and David Dencik as close allies in the Circus).

After that you're on your own with the plot, which is so murky and shadowy that many folks may have trouble following it (the people in the audience around me sure did, as I heard murmered questioning throughout the screening I attended).

However, if you pay close attention right from the beginning, you should be able to make sense of it (and maybe even guess who the mole is) - to a degree. There's still some plot points I'm not sure I understand.

No matter, Alfredson's film is still extremely immersive, with it's sparely lit wide shots of dusty office spaces and drab apartment houses as backdrops to back-stabbing treachery.

Oldman gives a tour de force of minimalism as the never smiling Smiley. Only showing intense emotion in one scene, Oldman's restrained and deadly serious demeanor navigates through the movie with precision. Throughout his career the man has gone to dizzying extremes - witness his over-the-top work as Sid Vicious, Count Dracula, and Jean-Baptiste Emmanuel Zorg (the villain in THE FIFTH ELEMENT) - but here it's all about what he's thinking; his inward turmoil.

The rest of the cast is spot-on as well - particularly Firth in his comfort zone of charm, Jones nicely settled in his stogginess, and Cumberbatch nailing his character's nervousness and confusion.

TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY is edgy espionage at its finest. Just take note that it's not a film one can watch casually. To fully get it, you have to quietly concentrate on the proceedings of these old grey men in high places of power, and listen intently to every spoken word, parsing every utterance for clues.

In other words, you have to be just like George Smiley.

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Blu Ray/DVD Review: BLACKTHORN

BLACKTHORN (Dir. Mateo Gil, 2011)

This film builds on the legend that the infamous outlaw Butch Cassidy didn’t die in the Bolivian army ambush in 1908, as depicted in George Roy Hill’s 1969 classic BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID - he lived into his old age as a rancher in the mountains of Bolivia, going by the name James Blackthorn.

Mateo Gil, working from a screenplay by Miquel Barros, gives the great grizzled Sam Shepard in the title role, getting caught up, on his way back to the states, in one last adventure involving a young Spanish thief (Eduardo Noriega) who has a posse after him because he stole $50,000.

Stephen Rea has a stand-out part as a broken down Irish lawman who suspects Cassidy is still alive. Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and Pádraic Delaney play the young Butch and Sundance in flashbacks that aren’t really necessary, but don’t distract too much from the grand old man Western here.

A suitably winding plot, Juan Ruiz Anchía’s stunning cinematography of the Bolivian landscape, and a powerful performance by Shephard make this recommendable, even if it is a bit slow going at times.

However, slow doesn’t necessarily equal boredom as some excellent modern Westerns – like THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD and MEEK'S CUTOFF – have shown. These fine films, BLACKTHORN included, well know that the wide terrain of the Old West should'nt be rushed through.

Special Features: Deleted Scenes, “Making of BLACKTHORN”, Short Films by Director Mateo Gil, HDNet: A Look at BLACKTHORN.

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