Contraband is a forgettable middle of the road crime thriller heavy on the crime and light on the thrills.

Following a plot rehashed from dozens of other crime movies, most notably Gone in 60 Seconds with a sprinkling of Kiss of Death, Contraband tells the story of Chris Farraday (Mark Wahlberg) a reformed smuggler who is forced back into the life when his brother-in-law Andy (Caleb Landry Jones) screws up a run and has to dump his cargo of cocaine that has him owing local crime boss Tim Briggs (Giovanni Ribisi) $700,000. Chris puts together a crew and heads to Panama to acquire a load of counterfeit bills he can turn for profit to pay Andy’s debt. His former partner and recovering alcoholic Sebastian (Ben Foster) stays behind to keep an eye on Chris’s wife Kate (Kate Beckinsale) as Briggs continues to lean on her. Of course, all is not as it seems and intrigue lurks just below the surface. Sadly you will figure out said intrigue before the movie is ready for you to so it ends up just sort of floating there not being intriguing, which is not what intrigue is supposed to do.

There are a lot of talented people in this movie and the cast is pretty awesome. Unfortunately, everyone but Ribisi seems to be on autopilot. Ribisi makes a bold choice with his character but sadly it was the wrong one. I have to give him credit for actually trying though.  Watching the movie unfold I found myself wondering what it was about the script that enticed any of these people to take part in the movie because it doesn’t do anything new or exciting and the whole thing just feels like it is going through the motions.

It isn’t that Contraband is horrible. With the exception of whatever the hell voice Ribisi is trying to do here, there is nothing particularly terrible about the movie. Still, there is nothing particularly good about it either and there are a lot of flaws that keep it from ever becoming so. Attempts at humor fall pretty flat and some of the dialogue is wooden, but generally it doesn’t make the viewer groan . Likewise, the pacing is a bit off with the beginning of the movie moving too fast while trying to establish the premise and characters and then gets too slow in its third act. This isn’t exactly a fatal flaw but makes the film really hard to engage with and invest in.

The action in the movie is competent as far as it goes but doesn’t really offer up anything we haven’t seen better in other movies. An armored car robbery feels a bit too much like the one in Heat, a race to the docks feels too much like Gone in 60 Seconds (in which Ribisi played a cop), camera angles in boating scenes are cribbed from Miami Vice and so on. There is pretty much nothing original in the movie and while the film hits the requisite points competently, it never does anything to justify its existence or to build any excitement.

Conclusion [6.0 out of 10]

At the end of the day, there just isn’t much to say about Contraband that hasn’t been said about any of the numerous other crime movies from which it cribs. The film really isn’t very notable and even the great cast can’t muster up enough interest to save this thing. If you want to see it, wait until Redbox or cable so you can get your money’s worth. It is hard to imagine seeing this in theater, matinee or full price, and not feeling cheated.