CONTRABAND

CONTRABAND is about as perfect as a caper movie gets - fast, fun, thrilling, intelligent.  To be sure, it's basic plot components are pretty conventional, but it has a tricksy enough story, and enough good humour to be the perfect Friday night-forget work-have some fun movie!

Mark Wahlberg plays a former smuggler turned straight, drawn back into "one last job" to save his idiot brother-in-law from the local drug dealer (a typically over-the-top Giovanni Ribisi).  He assembles a crew that's going to smuggle in forged currency from Panama in J K Simmons freighter. Of course, "one last job" movies are never simple.  And this one involves a double-cross back home; getting caught up in a Panamian armed robbery; an art heist; and a superbly choreographed fit-up job.  A few plot twists are predictable but there are enough genuine surprises, and I love that no plot thread is left untied.

The movie is directed by the Icelandic actor-writer-producer-director Baltasar Kormakur (JAR CITY) who wrote and starred in the original.  Together with DP Barry Ackroyd (GREEN ZONE) he directs the movie with real style and pace, and a surprisingly light touch!  There are many scenes and lines where it's clear that the smugglers are having a great time, despite or even because of the high stakes - more young kids up to some japes than Michael-Mann style existential angst.  I also really liked the casting (ex Ribisi) - being particularly impressed by Kate Beckinsale, of all people!, actually doing some proper acting as Wahlberg's wife. 

Flicking through the IMDB review page it becomes clear that CONTRABAND has taken a bad rap for being too genre-cliche-ridden.  Whatever. I had a bunch of fun watching it, and it's in my Best Of list for the year. Not every film has to be a heart-wrenching, life-changing Iranian art-house flick. There will always be room on this blog for good honest popcorn entertainment.

CONTRABAND is on release in the USA, Kazakhstan, Russia, Singapore, Bulgaria, Canada, Pakistan, Israel, Kuwait, Estonia, Iceland, Romania, the Philippines, India, Syria and Poland. It goes on release in Hong Kong on February 9th; in Australia and New Zealand on February 23rd; in Portugal on March 1st; in the Netherlands on March 8th and in Germany, Finland, Ireland, Norway, Spain, Turkey and the UK on March 16th. It opens on March 22nd in Belgium, Denmark and Hungary; on April 19th in Argentina; on April 27th in Brazil and Lithuania; on May 4th in Sweden and on May 16th in France and Italy.

Justifiably overlooked DVD of the month - EVERYBODY'S FINE

EVERYBODY'S FINE is an embarrassingly bad movie - shamelessly manipulative, bland, banal, unoriginal, and just plain dull. It tells the story of Frank Goode (Robert de Niro) - a retired widower whose four children bail on a family visit at the last minute. So, armed with his medicine and against his doctor's advice, he boards trains and buses to visit them all in turn. First he turns up at artist David's flat only to find it deserted. His other three grown children will keep up the evasion of where David really is - trying to protect a father they really have no means of communicating with authentically. Each evasion is more painful than the next. On the second visit, Frank's daughter (Kate Beckinsale) is caught out using her son's illness to escape the family visit. She seems self-absorbed and her son finds the grandfather irrelevant. The third visit is with Frank's other son, (Sam Rockwell), a percussionist in a regional orchestra. His father seems disappointed that he didn't become a conductor - the son seems ashamed to have let down his father but incapable of persuading him that this is what he wants. The final visit is with the other daughter (Drew Barrymore) who seems to have more time for her father, but by this time, he's out of meds and increasingly disillusioned. There is, however, no real enlightenment here. No real questioning or exploration of the relationships. Just think - this is same material - these doubts and neuroses about parental expectations and evasions - that powered the cinema of Ingmar Bergman. And just see what schmaltz and banality it is reduced to in its final act.  I am hardly surprised that this movie went straight to DVD in the UK. 

Additional tags: Kirk Jones, Henry Braham, Melissa Leo, James Frain, Andrew Modshein, Dario Marianelli

EVERYBODY'S FINE was released in winter 2009/2010 in the US, Israel, Mexico, Spain, Poland, Hong Kong, Sweden, Lebanon, Singapore, Panama, Australia, Turkey, the Czech Republic, Kuwait, Estonia, Peru, Argentina, Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, Portugal, the Philippines and Italy.