Review: Contraband

Having Kormákur on board Contraband is by no means a bad thing – when remaking a film it usually appears more credible if someone who worked on the original production is involved. Although, Contraband is certainly a credible film in its own right. This American relocation makes full use of the New Orleans setting and captures the seedy underworld of the smuggling profession. Kormákur uses an array of helicopter and high angle shots capturing the city at its best – these also come in handy whilst portraying the maze like structure of the cargo ships, filled with countless shipping crates (this may not sound particularly interesting, but looks great). The Icelandic director also appears completely at ease with the action scenes – for example, a particularly well-crafted Panama shoot-out sequence, which acts as one of the film’s centrepieces.

Kormákur truly amps up the tension throughout Contraband – from Giovanni’s near-psychotic villain stalking Wahlberg’s character, Chris Farraday’s family – to a tense one hour window in which Farraday has to load the ship with contraband goods without being spotted. The latter section of the film, set in Panama is likely to be regarded as its strongest asset, keeping a fairly realistic edge yet still providing action-packed entertainment. When Farraday returns to New Orleans, the script turns into a somewhat generic, cliché-filled crime-thriller and struggles to match the film’s previous high-octane sequences.