Contraband *** (R)

Mark Glass | Jan 17, 2012, 3:47 p.m.

Contraband - The Movie

Note the title is one word, making it an action thriller about sneaking illegal stuff into the Port of New Orleans from Panama. Had it been two words, we’d be watching a group of politically-oriented musicians from Nicaragua. That leaves us with Mark Wahlberg playing a second-generation smuggler, trying to go straight, now that he has a lovely wife (Kate Beckinsale) and two sons to raise better than his imprisoned pappy had done for him. But when his dufus brother-in-law runs afoul of a vicious drug dealer (Giovanni Ribisi, setting a personal high for creepiness), Wahlberg is forced back into the game to save not only the kid, but the rest of his family.

That lands him on a freighter to the Canal Zone to illicitly import some “funny money”, since he refuses to handle narcotics, even in this emergency. A reluctant recidivist can still draw some lines (as in those one won’t cross, rather than the kind one snorts). But complications and double-crosses abound during the voyage and back home, giving us plenty of subplots that keep the players guessing and scrambling.

Violence also abounds.

At least that’s the intention. But director Baltasar Kormakur underlit his sets so severely, viewers may not all the adrenalin rush much of the footage should have delivered. Admittedly, quite a bit of the action occurs in naturally-dark warehouses and ship interiors; and no one ever shoots New Orleans in sunlight for any type of drama. But more illumination would have been welcome in many scenes. Apart from that, the script is relatively solid, if predictable, for such fare, making this a satisfactory vehicle for its stars and genre fans.