Anyone can take one look at this Mark Wahlberg thriller (dumped into the Friday the 13th slot in mid-JANUARY no less) and tell it’s going to be generic. They can listen to some random thug threaten his wife and Wahlberg scowl “Don’t you ever talk about my wife. You go near my kids, I’ll kill you” and know exactly what they’re in for. You know a movie like this before you even go into it, but watch it anyway, because, hell, it’s January, it’s a dumping ground for the crappiest movies, and if you find one that’s not awful then what else are you going to do?
What Works: This movie’s not awful. Predictable? Absolutely. Dime a dozen generic? You bet. Not very good? It’s fair to say that. Not good at all? Maybe. But awful? No. There’s a couple of good sequences involving smuggling counterfeit bills, a Jackson Pollack painting stolen from an armored car, and drugs, and of course Wahlberg is excellent in a role he could now do in his sleep. Also I liked Giovanni Ribsi’s over-acting as a lively cajun thug and Diego Luna also excels at playing a Panamanian thug.
What Doesn’t Work: This is a C-grade thriller I won’t remember in two weeks and had a hard time remembering on the walk back from the theater. It entertains in the dead zone that is mid-January (a notoriously awful time for new movies) but I don’t see it working quite as well a few months from now with stiffer competition.
What I Would Have Done Differently: The stuff in this film about smuggling feels fresh and new. By now we’ve seen a thousand movies about criminals, but I can’t remember a film solely about people who smuggle things in on boats, and I think if this movie had really delved deeper into that instead of getting lost in generic action movie stuff, it would have been B grade instead of C grade. I still welcome a good director like Soderbergh or Michael Mann coming along to make that great smuggling movie one day.