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viveContraband
I had honestly thought the only movie that could make me so exhausted and depressed by the three-quarter mark was The Departed. Maybe if I had read a review or a summary or something before viewing, I might have been a little more prepared for how the story turned out. Unfortunately I had stopped to watch it in the middle of aimless channel-surfing, on a night I was too tired to sleep. The premise had me hooked, wondering which side the story would favour.
THIS. THIS WAS AN EXAMPLE OF HOW CURIOSITY KILLED THE CAT. BASICALLY EVERYONE DIED which yes, I should have known given the title, but COME ON.
Watching Contraband caused a similar emotional drain. It started off nice and exciting, withBanshee Jones' character and his partner in crime scrambling to dump a shipment of drugs into ocean during a surprise police raid, and the little bit of cheeky bastard!Jones was nice. Then things started taking a turn for the worse, first with the partner in crime being murdered, followed by Wahlberg's character and said character's family getting dragged into the mess, then figuring out the logistics of smuggling a ridiculous amount of counterfeit money within a very tight timeline. And then dear old Murphy's Law said "'Scuse me, I'm taking over this movie now, thanks", with a lot of "and then they made it by the fucking skin of their teeth. Skin. Of. Their. TEETH."
About three-quarters the way through, I was so tired out from all the close calls that weren't even happening to me that I could not even hope that things would turn out okay for the main characters anymore. By the end of the movie, I didn't have any energy left in me to be happy for the deserving characters' happy ending.
Overall, given some distance and processing and time, I think this movie had a few good points and some faily points. The smuggling logistics were interesting, and I thought the plan was rather creative, although it might be my lack of watching smuggling stories talking. The main focuses that I chose to remember were family and loyalty, and they were depicted beautifully: what this person would not just be willing to do, but actually do for family, whether or not there are blood-ties, and what another person would do when they've abandoned those ties and haven't yet fully admitted it to themselves.
The faily point was how the sole purpose of Beckinsale's character was to be the victim of violence. "The wife and kids" were the stakes in the story, not the contraband. And this movie tried to emphasize that by sending in thugs to destroy property and threaten the family, which later escalates to physical violence against Beckinsale's character by a treacherous family friend/ best friend character. I'm not sure Beckinsale's character ever fully got to be a person, actually. She only got to be proactive once, when she refused to entrust her and her kids' safety with the best friend character any longer. Which was then rendered pointless when SHE WENT BACK TO SAID TREACHEROUS BEST FRIEND'S APARTMENT TO GET THEIR STUFF, OH MY GOD, JUST LEAVE IT THERE, YOU CAN PICK IT UP LATER/ IT CAN BE REPLACED/ ARGH.
tl;dr: Too grim, exciting, and serious for me to cope with, at least without forewarning. Not sure if it was going for gritty realism or not, since I have no knowledge of how criminal or ex-criminal life works. Contains a gratuitous amount of violence against the only named female character, while the named male characters suffer only a bruise, maybe a scratch. Also, Haas, why do I keep seeing you play skeevy characters. I've seen you play minor/ supporting characters in three films so far, and they are all skeevy without redeeming qualities. Why.
I had honestly thought the only movie that could make me so exhausted and depressed by the three-quarter mark was The Departed. Maybe if I had read a review or a summary or something before viewing, I might have been a little more prepared for how the story turned out. Unfortunately I had stopped to watch it in the middle of aimless channel-surfing, on a night I was too tired to sleep. The premise had me hooked, wondering which side the story would favour.
THIS. THIS WAS AN EXAMPLE OF HOW CURIOSITY KILLED THE CAT. BASICALLY EVERYONE DIED which yes, I should have known given the title, but COME ON.
Watching Contraband caused a similar emotional drain. It started off nice and exciting, with
About three-quarters the way through, I was so tired out from all the close calls that weren't even happening to me that I could not even hope that things would turn out okay for the main characters anymore. By the end of the movie, I didn't have any energy left in me to be happy for the deserving characters' happy ending.
Overall, given some distance and processing and time, I think this movie had a few good points and some faily points. The smuggling logistics were interesting, and I thought the plan was rather creative, although it might be my lack of watching smuggling stories talking. The main focuses that I chose to remember were family and loyalty, and they were depicted beautifully: what this person would not just be willing to do, but actually do for family, whether or not there are blood-ties, and what another person would do when they've abandoned those ties and haven't yet fully admitted it to themselves.
The faily point was how the sole purpose of Beckinsale's character was to be the victim of violence. "The wife and kids" were the stakes in the story, not the contraband. And this movie tried to emphasize that by sending in thugs to destroy property and threaten the family, which later escalates to physical violence against Beckinsale's character by a treacherous family friend/ best friend character. I'm not sure Beckinsale's character ever fully got to be a person, actually. She only got to be proactive once, when she refused to entrust her and her kids' safety with the best friend character any longer. Which was then rendered pointless when SHE WENT BACK TO SAID TREACHEROUS BEST FRIEND'S APARTMENT TO GET THEIR STUFF, OH MY GOD, JUST LEAVE IT THERE, YOU CAN PICK IT UP LATER/ IT CAN BE REPLACED/ ARGH.
tl;dr: Too grim, exciting, and serious for me to cope with, at least without forewarning. Not sure if it was going for gritty realism or not, since I have no knowledge of how criminal or ex-criminal life works. Contains a gratuitous amount of violence against the only named female character, while the named male characters suffer only a bruise, maybe a scratch. Also, Haas, why do I keep seeing you play skeevy characters. I've seen you play minor/ supporting characters in three films so far, and they are all skeevy without redeeming qualities. Why.
