Thanks for the memories!

Boring, long, and too preachy.

All that we are seeing on the screen is happening with real people, real action sequences in the background, forcing the eye to watch as if we were there.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

Contraband is an underrated movie. The performances are intense and well-acted, the film has good directing and the movie plot is decent. They went with a visually dark tone from start to finish which supports the story line. If you like crime thrillers, i recommend this. Maybe you have already seen this flick, maybe you haven't, but this is one of those movies that flew under the radar. Contraband is a must-watch. The only problem i have with this film is a very brief scene that features a wolf in a cage. As an animal lover, things like that bother me, but i presume everything is fine and that the animal is from a conservation animal place because they won't be able to use wild animals that literally live in the wild.

From start till the end, Mark's character, our protagonist, is shown as the golden boy who is not only awesome at doing what he does, but just cannot take a misstep that will result in total failure even if he's forced to do something.He breezes through all challenges in his path while the "big bad" guys spend time trying to act scary or plotting something, while being one of THE lamest bad guys I've ever seen. They not only DON'T look threatening, but they act that way as well.There comes only ONE moment where I felt "Hmm, wow, they actually did that?" concerning the death of a main character, but they even chicken out of that in a few minutes.Seriously, what exactly IS the point of this movie? Is it to show how awesome Mark's character is? Cause the ending not only shows that but proves it. It's ridiculous.This movie is a really dumb "action" (if you call people walking around fast "action", then I guess..) movie that fails to be a "entertaining" dumb action movie. Meh!

CONTRABAND is a wretched script elevated by some decent Scandi direction. The plot sees Marky Mark as an ex-smuggler who - who'd have guessed it? - gets pulled back in for one last job, after his brother in law loses a cargo that belonged to the wrong people. Soon he's got the old crew back together and they're off to Panama to pick up the goods, whilst his wife gets hassled by a thug from the same gang (which isn't entirely convincing as Kate Beckinsale looks like she could take Giovanni Ribisi in a fair fight anyday) and also by the ex-alcoholic friend he left behind to look after her. Smuggling is an interesting subject which is under-represented cinematically, although this film doesn't help because it's far more interested in heists and thuggery than in how the smuggling actually works. The aforementioned heist in Panama is the best part of the film, even if the plan makes no sense and leads to nearly everyone involved dying. The final outcome is never in doubt and the acting is pure formality but it rattles along, the location shooting is nice and the subject is just different enough to make this watchable.

First of all, let me say that I'm not going to say a bad word against this film. However, the problem is that I'm not going to say a good one either.There's very little to say about 'Contraband' because I feel that I've seen it all before. Retired criminal (Mark Wahlberg) gets called out of retirement for 'one last job' to save his loser brother in law from a gang of nasties. There's a doublecross in there somewhere, but you'll probably see it coming a mile off. Despite, the decent enough cast, there's nothing here that a hardened cinema-goer hasn't seen a hundred times before.You can 'watch' this film while you're moving around the house, generally doing other things and you won't miss anything important.If you're a die-hard fan of Mark Wahlberg or his on-screen wife, Kate Beckinsale, then you might see it as more than just average, but I would say rent or watch it on TV before you decide to pay to watch it. Just in case.http://thewrongtreemoviereviews.blogspot.co.uk/