It was a rainy Monday night and I was looking for something suitably brainless to take my mind off the weather. (That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.)
Mark Wahlberg does his lock and load duty as a retired smuggler who decides to pull one last job to get his wife’s kid brother out of a jam (and if your wife looked like Kate Beckinsale you would, too.)
While Dad is at sea and heading for Panama his wife and kids are being menaced by a greasy tattooed thug (Giovanni Ribisi.)
Ben Foster also figures in the mix and if you’ve seen his mug in movies like 3:10 to Yuma and The Mechanic you just know that can`t be good.
So, anyway, in the DVD extras, I see the movie is based on a 2008 Icelandic thriller called Reykjavik-Rotterdam.
And wouldn`t ya know it? Next time I am in the video shop I see one copy of the original is new on the shelves. And unlike most English language remakes of foreign films these two flicks have something in common besides a semblance of the plot.
Turns out Baltasar Kormakur, the director of the English language remake, is the star of the original Icelandic movie.
The original even shares a common cast member. Bilingual actor Ólafur Darri Ólafsson appears in a small role in both films.
Granted, Kormakur lacks Wahlberg`s hustle and muscle as a believable action hero. (And, as a director, he demonstrates some impressive action chops in his lensing of a kinetic set piece in which Wahlberg`s character gets mixed up in a Panamanian armored car heist.)
So yeah, Contraband works for me as a competent action thriller (and it did take my mind off the rain for a couple of hours.)
And although Ribisi is shorter in stature he is way more menacing than the thug in the original movie.
No one plays a psychotic loose cannon like Ribisi. (Actually, he is a scary little dude in anything he is in. I mean, he gave me the creeps in Lost in Translation and he wasn`t even playing a bad guy in that one.)
However, I can see an able-bodied American made action thriller anytime. The shelves of my local video store are littered with them.
But how many times do I get a chance to see a genuine, made -in-Iceland crime thriller?
So, yeah, if you`re looking for an action-packed Hollywood timewaster Contraband will fill the bill.
But rent the original first. To me, that is truly exotic film fare.
PS Kormakur and Wahlberg must have bonded on Contraband because Marky Mark is already working with the Icelandic director on a new action thriller, tentatively titled 2 Guns, with Denzel Washington, no less.
Rixbitz 