Seeing the logo from Working Title films, you know instantly that you’re about to see a quality movie, so why is this the first Working Title film to be simply satisfactory with no great power?

So what’s it all about?

To protect his brother-in-law from a drug lord, a former smuggler heads to Panama to score millions of dollars in counterfeit bills.

Tim Bevan produces well, but perhaps the screenplay by Aaron Guzikowski doesn’t quite fit the realms of believability. Screenwriters will know that time-limits are so often put in movies to increase the pace and let the audience know how soon the action needs to complete. The dialogue will often include something like “we have 24-hours to save the world,” or “the bomb will go off in 3 minutes.” Everybody knows exactly where they stand in the rush to bring the movie to conclusion.

Contraband creates a mockery of the time paced movie. The goodies, who are also the baddies, but not as bad as the very bad baddies, have too many situations to overcome in too short a time that make the premise quite ridiculous. If the audience loses a sense of believing what is happening on the screen, concentration wanes.

Mark Wahlberg performs well in trying to tie all the links together in this movie, but the impossible scenario leaves him out on a limb. Kate Beckinsale stars as female interest, but her on-screen time is so small he fails to gain the opportunity to shine. This is a pity for such a quality actress who deserves better.

The movie will sell well around the world, with the distributors properly realising that the January release date matches the movie, knowing that the audience doesn’t expect the best films of the year arrive in the theatre so long before the film buffs release their best of film lists close to the awards season.

If you don’t expect too much, you won’t be disappointed. This movie is as much about the suspension of the belief in reality as it is just a holding page until the real quality movies arrive.

One star*

I didn’t know if I could be bothered to post a review of this movie. I went to see it with high expectations. The premise and the trailer looked good. I didn’t realize that other reviewers had said it was such a poor movie and even if I had read some reviews first, I often ignore them to make up my own mind.

It wasn’t that the screenplay was poor. On paper it probably left the writer looking quite good and was probably the reason the movie raised the funds to make it; that and having Kate Beckinsale attached as the lead actor.

The problems arrived at the shooting stage. It never made you worried for the cast who were placed in precarious positions. You never anxious about the atrocious weather that we’re told would kill most people in minutes. In fact we were never taken to a level of heightened interest.

When the action took place, most of it was hidden by the weather conditions. Okay we know about the terrible weather they get down at the south pole, but we couldn’t see who was fighting who and we lost interest rapidly. The sooner the movie ended, the better. I was past caring who made it to the end after about half way through the movie; couldn’t care who the bad guys were and of course knew the leading lady would make it to the end because they don’t pay that much money to a star for her to drop out early on, usually. That’s not really a spoiler alert.

Ticket sales have only reached a third of its budget so they’re relying heavily on DVD rental and sales. They’ll need lots of people taken by the DVD cover to shift it across the counter.

Sadly, this movie didn’t gain a large theatre release due to ‘problems’ with the distributor, possibly economical. That’s a real shame because this is a real film, not a shoot ‘em up big action, explosions movie. A real film has a great script, great crew and makes you think. A real movie gets you talking well after it’s finished. We’re still talking about it in our household.

This film is supposed to ‘parallel’ the case of Valerie Plame, a CIA agent exposed by the media after her husband wrote a newspaper piece attacking government lies and manipulation (they wouldn’t do that would they?)

How this differs is that the premise may be similar, but the actions and script bear no real resemblance to the original story; this version is totally fiction; it’s just the idea that is fact. I don’t know if we’re allowed to call Plame a former CIA spy, so we won’t.

The screenplay by Rod Lurie is a masterpiece; he also directed. He holds the suspension from the first minute right through to the last. Only when the twist/reveal is disclosed do we know why a mother of a six year old would spend a year in jail refusing to name her source.

Okay, we know journalists like to keep some sources private, there’s a need if you want to be trusted in the future, but do you need to lose your husband, your job, your family and your child just to prove a point? You spend the whole movie telling her just to give up her source. This brings the movie’s only fault. Now that you know (you will when you watch it!) the source of the information, why not reveal it because nothing terrible could come from it, apart from the journalist’s sources being open to question, or perhaps that’s her point all along.

The actors had plenty to say. Kate Beckinsale as the journalist who outed a CIA agent is astonishing in her role. There is total belief in her ability to keep her secret. Why didn‘t they just torture her? Whoops, I forgot, they don’t do that anymore.

You can’t begin to like Matt Dillon’s character. He doesn’t want you to. He’s the bad guy; the prosecutor. He’s only defending the government’s right to keep CIA agents safe from the enemy while working in the field, someone else’s field. He’s consistent to the point of getting his woman prosecuted, come what may.
Vera Farmiga plays the CIA agent who has to lose her job. Her department will cover their backs by losing her. She’s so nice in many scenes, but reverts to shocking back street language when provoked (no offence back streeters).

Alan Alda, David Schwimmer and Angela Bassett all perform to the highest of their talents as the back-up teams, although we do wonder which side of the fence they really are supporting.

There are several points to this movie (all for your movie club to discuss):

Should journalists be able to maintain secrecy and protect their ‘sources’ of information?

Can the media ‘out’ a working CIA agent (and risk her life)?

Can the government force a journalist to reveal their sources?

How long can someone be held in contempt of court?

How far do you need to take your integrity, especially when you become selfish as it affects your family?

Go rent this movie; it will make you think and you will be discussing it for hours afterwards.