Contraband

Contraband - Dir. Baltasar Kormákur (2012)

Stupid 9/11 comments aside, I like Mark Wahlberg. As evidenced by this turns in The Happening and The Lovely Bones, he's not a nuanced thespian capable of heavy drama. But, he is an underrated comedic performer and a convincing big screen tough guy. Much like Vin Diesel or Jason Statham, Walhberg could be a more prolific action star if he found better roles. Instead, he's content for run-of-the-mill pictures like Shooter, Max Payne, and now Contraband.

Contraband is a loose remake of a 2008 Icelandic crime thriller called Reykjavik-Rotterdam whose star, Baltasar Kormákur is the director of the Hollywood version. Wahlberg plays Chris Farraday, a former smuggler who has gone legit and works as an installer of home security systems in New Orleans. Kate Beckinsale is his wife, also named Kate, and they have two sons together.

Kate's dumbass kid brother, Andy (Caleb Landry Jones), is still involved in the smuggling business. Now, he owes $700,000 to a violent gangster named Tim Briggs (Giovanni Ribisi) after tossing a shipment of cocaine into the water during a surprise customs search. Chris is forced to intervene when Briggs not only threatens Andy, but his whole family. Chris assembles a small crew on board a cargo ship in order to smuggle $15 million in counterfeit bills from Panama to pay off the debt.

Contraband is formulaic through and through. This is your basic "one last job" movie where the protagonist must pull off a big heist for a massive payday. Murphy's Law always seems to rear its ugly head and no plan ever comes off without a hitch. In Wahlberg's case, he has to deal with a crooked captain (J.K. Simmons) and a psycho crime lord (Diego Luna) who ropes him into an armored car robbery.

There's not much here to differentiate Contraband from the numerous pictures just like it. I do like that the hero is a smuggler rather than an overused profession like a bank robber or hitman. The bulk of the film is set on the cargo ship, which is another unique setting. Yet, Contraband doesn't delve deeper into either element. It's not interested in the intricacies of the smuggling trade, just generic shaky cam action sequences.

J.K Simmons is pretty much the best thing in the movie, bringing much welcomed humor to the role of the uptight captain. Giovanni Ribisi goes way over the top as a tatted up scumbag with a nasally voice. Ben Foster co-stars as Chris's best friend, Sebastian, who has also gone legit and is a recovering alcoholic. Foster is intense as usual, but with an understated quietness. There is a twist to his character that anyone can see coming a mile away. Finally, there's poor Kate Beckinsale. If you want to see her kicking ass, watch Underworld: Awakening. If you want to see Beckinsale in the thankless role of damsel in distress, see Contraband.

Contraband isn't a terrible movie, but it is indicative of the generic flotsam dumped by the studios during the uneventful early part of the year.

Rating: ** (*****)

Mister Lonely

Mister Lonely - Dir. Harmony Korine (2008)


Harmony Korine burst onto the cinematic landscape as the co-writer to the controversial, unflinching Kids. He made his debut as director with Gummo, a redneck David Lynch-esque look in a small Southern town. He followed that up with Julien Donkey Boy, Korine’s entry into the Dogme 95 movement. Both films cemented Korine’s status as a polarizing filmmaker. Some critics lauded him as a unique voice others considered his films incomprehensible and reprehensible. Korine’s career was derailed by drug problems and after a nine-year gap, he returns with Mister Lonely, co-written with his brother Avi.

Mister Lonely opens with a scene of a Michael Jackson impersonator (Diego Luna) riding around a go-kart track on a yellow mini-bike as Bobby Vinton’s hit song plays over the credits. This is exactly the kind of thing Korine is the master of, finding beauty in the strange and unsettling. This faux-King of Pop earns a living in Paris and meets a Marilyn Monroe impersonator (Samantha Morton) while performing at an old folks’ home. Marilyn invites Michael to the Scottish countryside where she and other celebrity look-alikes have formed their own commune. They have a James Dean, a Madonna, a Buckwheat, the Three Stooges, the Pope, Queen Elizabeth II, Sammy Davis Jr., and a foul-mouthed Abraham Lincoln. Marilyn has a daughter, a doppelganger of Shirley Temple, and is married to an insensitive, piggish “Charlie Chaplin.” Oddly, their ranks also include a Little Red Riding Hood (played by Korine’s wife, Rachel). There’s also a completely unrelated subplot involving filmmaker Werner Herzog (in a scene stealing role) as a priest in South America charged with airdropping food to poor villages. One of his nuns falls out of the plane, but miraculously survives, an act of God, no doubt.

This quiet commune acts as a microcosm for our own society. The impersonators look to fashion their own idyllic fantasy world, but find the realities of life creeping in. Their sheep get sick and need to be put down. Despite creating alternate personas, those in the community still suffer from all the same neuroses and jealousies as anyone else. For all of Korine’s intentions and best laid plans, Mister Lonely feels like two incomplete films slapped together. There’s thoughtfulness and tragedy to be found as well as tedium and pretension.

Rating: **

Milk

Milk - Dir. Gus Van Sant (2008)

"My name is Harvey Milk and I want to recruit you."

Auteur Gus Van Sant has bounced back and forth from the arthouse to the multiplex. He’s probably best known by mainstream audiences for the Oscar-winning Good Will Hunting or the ill-conceived shot-for-shot remake of Psycho. He’s spent the last several years making films of a more avant-garde nature (Elephant, Gerry, Paranoid Park). Now, Van Sant has found some middle ground with his biopic of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay individual elected to public office. Milk is a rather conventional film that transcends its by-the-numbers narrative trappings thanks to an exceptional cast led by Sean Penn.

Penn might be a humorless killjoy in real life, but he’s an amazing actor. Here, he throws himself into the role. He’s created a three-dimensional character without simply relying on the mannered impersonation that a less-talented actor would have given. Dustin Lance Black’s script doesn’t bother to get into Harvey Milk’s childhood or family background. He wisely skips ahead to Milk at 40 who has a mid-life crisis or revelation. Milk transforms from a Wall Street banker and Goldwater Republican to a long-haired hippie. Moving to SF, he opens a camera shop and becomes known as the Mayor of Castro Street. Though Milk gains unlikely supporters in the teamsters union, he ultimately loses his initial three campaigns before becoming city supervisor. Milk shrewdly finds a way to relate to a wide demographic of voters (not just the gay community) by promising to clean up dog poop. Throughout all this, Penn captures the real Milk’s charm, disarming wit, and determination (as evidenced in the Oscar-winning documentary, The Times of Harvey Milk).

Josh Brolin gives yet another amazing performance as fellow supervisor Dan White who would go on to assassinate both Milk and Mayor George Moscone. Brolin is perfect as the straight-laced White, an ex-cop and firefighter. He’s a man not unsettled by Milk’s sexuality, but by Milk’s sudden rise in power and notoriety, a rise that should have been his. And there might have been a little more to it as Milk speculated, "He might be one of us."

Milk’s release couldn’t have come at a more appropriate time. Milk organized gay activists against Prop 6 which called for the firing of all gay teachers in the public school system as well as their supporters. The measure was championed by singer Anita Bryant (who appears only in archival footage) and played upon the fears for their children’s safety. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Rating: *** 1/2