Contraband: What Would You Family to Family Your Family?
I saw “Contraband,” the movie where reformed-but-world-class smuggler Mark Wahlberg has to go back to a life of crime in order to save his family. Specifically his brother-in-law, who owes money to gangster Giovanni Ribisi, but later his kids and wife are threatened, too. Just when he thinks he’s out, they smuggle him back in!
Mark Wahlberg might be the heir to Harrison Ford, in terms of family-protecting intensity. When a double-cross gets him caught in a firefight between machine-gun toting thugs and the Panamanian army, Wahlberg yells, “You put my family in danger!” as he pummels the double-crosser. He doesn’t mention the fifteen minutes of automatic weapon fire or his own near-death; just the family, in danger. Then he relents on the pummeling, because the double-crosser is also family, and he loves his family.
This is one reason why “The Fighter” works. Even though Micky Ward has a terrible, manipulative family, it’s unimaginable he’d ever ditch his family, simply because he’s played by Mark Wahlberg. This is why Mark Wahlberg might genuinely think he could have prevented 9/11. He said, “If I was on that plane with my kids, it wouldn’t have went down like it did. There would have been a lot of blood in that first-class cabin and then me saying, ‘OK, we’re going to land somewhere safely, don’t worry.’” (emphasis mine) In a movie, the presence of his children would have made Wahlberg an unstoppable fighting/smuggling force, so why couldn’t he draw on that family-based berserker rage in real life?
Accents
This movie is set in New Orleans, though Giovanni Ribisi is the only actor who does a New Orleans accent to any degree. And it’s possibly the worst movie accent I’ve ever heard, at least in the same class as Keanu Reeves in “Dracula,” Tim Curry in “Congo,” Kevin Costner in “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves,” Christian Slater in “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves,” and Keanu Reeves in “The Devil’s Advocate.” Joey Devine asked, “Is he like Dr. John’s son?”
You can also tell the movie is in New Orleans because of the scene where Wahlberg explains that, if he’d been with his kids, those levees wouldn’t have went down like they did in 2005.
Chemistry
My favorite line of the movie comes when Wahlberg explains part of his ingenious smuggling plan by shouting, “Didn’t you take chemistry in school? Salt dissolves in water, bitch!” That is the least-tough statement that has ever been punctuated with “bitch.” Also, is that a piece of knowledge that’s reserved for chemists? Chemists, and master smugglers. I don’t think Wahlberg’s character studied chemistry either, but maybe his family had a history of high blood pressure, so he had to learn how to defeat their nemesis, salt.
“You’re trying to give my family hypertension! I’m gonna dissolve you in water, bitch!”
All in all, “Contraband” is really stupid but fairly enjoyable, and I look forward to not really watching it but also not turning it off some future Sunday afternoon when it’s on USA.
