Contraband

Stars: Mark Wahlberg, Kate Beckinsale, Ben Foster, Giovanni Ribisi, Caleb Landry Jones, Lukas Haas, Diego Luna, J K Simmons, David O'Hara, William Lucking, Robert Wahlberg

Director: Baltasar Kormákur

Everyone seems to be double-crossing everyone else, and motives are rarely clear, in this run-of-the-mill smuggling yarn.

Ex-smuggler Chris (Mark Wahlberg) is drawn back to his old ways when the young brother, Andy (Jones) of his wife (Beckinsale), following in the family footsteps, has to ditch his cargo of drugs when customs officers swoop, incurring the wrath of gangster boss Ribisi, who calls on Chris to make reparation of the money he's lost - or his wife and two sons will be for it.

Chris's old partner Sebastian (Foster) stays behind to look after wifey (whom he covets - surprise, surprise), while Chris works passage on a liner to Panama, skippered by corrupt Captain Camp (Simmons), where Chris plans to pick up enough counterfeit currency to pay off Andy's debt.

Needless to say, one complication follows another, initially when Chris rejects some sub-standard counterfeit, and must take part in a security-van robbery to get the currency he needs.

Performances here are pretty much par for the course, apart from Ribisi's way-over-the-top drugs boss, but there's lots of action and a modicum of suspense, presumably inherited from the film on which this is based - the Icelandic thriller Reykjavik-Rotterdam.

David Quinlan

USA 2011. UK Distributor: Universal. Colour by deluxe.
108 minutes. Widescreen. UK certificate: 15.

Guidance ratings (out of 3): Sex/nudity 0, Violence/Horror 1, Drugs 2, Swearing 2.

Review date: 10 Mar 2012