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Synopsis: Chris Farraday long ago abandoned his life of crime, but after his brother-in-law, Andy, botches a drug deal for his ruthless boss, Tim Briggs, Chris is forced back into doing what he does best -- running contraband -- to settle Andy's debt. Chris is a legendary smuggler and quickly assembles a crew with the help of his best friend, Sebastian, to head to Panama and return with millions in counterfeit bills.

Things quickly fall apart and with only hours to reach the cash, Chris must use his rusty skills to successfully navigate a treacherous criminal network of brutal drug lords, cops and hit men before his wife, Kate, and sons become their target.

Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Kate Beckinsale, Ben Foster, Giovanni Ribisi, Lukas Haas, Caleb Landry Jones
Directed by: Baltasar Kormákur
U.S. Rating: R

Mark Wahlberg is a film magnet. He's one of the few Hollywood actors that no matter how good or bad the film might be, he'll always attract film viewers to theaters. Even more, when we add to his performance, an amazing supporting cast like in this particular film, Kate Beckinsale, Ben Foster & Giovanni Ribisi.

What I actually found interesting is that Contraband felt like when The Italian Job meets with Gone in 60 Seconds. It had a few bites of all these great action films obviously, with some important variants.

Mark Wahlberg play the role of Chris Farraday, an ex-smuggler who's been retired for a while and works installing security alarms. He lives a peaceful life with his BEAUTIFUL wife, Kate (Kate Beckinsale), and their children. Chris' brother-in-law, Andy was smuggling drugs in a cargo ship, but was forced to drop them while trying to escape from the police. Andy's boss, ruthless mobster Tim Briggs (Giovanni Ribisi), is infuriated and wants Andy to repay him the drug's worth in money. Tim sends Andy and his friends to the hospital and forces Chris to meet Tim, who threatens to kill Chris' family if Andy doesn't pay $700,000 in two weeks.

Chris knows that the only way to get the money is to do what he was good at, run contraband. He joins the crew of a cargo ship where his father Bud (William Lucking), currently in prison, used to run contraband, in order to smuggle $10,000,000 in fake bills from Panama with the help of Andy and Chris' old friend Danny Raymer. While Chris is gone, he asks his best friend, Sebastian Abney (Ben Foster), to take care of his family, since he knew they'd be in danger. In Panama, even when Chris has put 'the perfect' plan together to get the money and smuggle it into the U.S., things starts spinning really fast in a very bad way. Director Baltasar Kormákur made his best efforts on these events, making the film appealed to viewers with all the action involved in these scenes. While Chris was in Panama, Tim was constantly threatening with rudeness and violence his family. Sebastian has to be constantly protecting them and this situation makes it hard for Kate, who starts getting tired of Sebastian. Under the effect of alcohol, he tries to kiss her and he pushes her against a wall. He panics and thinks he killed her, changing all the situation, now that Chris is on the way back to the U.S.

Sebastian will take some important (and wrong) decisions that will put Chris under more danger. I won't tell you what happend at the end, so you feel motivated to watch it :)

The end is kind of predictable, even though, it has some important unexpected turns on the story that makes it worth to watch the film. A pretty descent action film, even more during these first months of the yeat, when we know Film Studios are just focused on promoting their Oscars nominated films and getting ready for the big Summer season.

I would rate this movie with a 3/5

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