Contraband (Blu-ray) (2012)

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General		Extras
Category	Action	Audio Commentary-Baltasar Kormakur (director) & Evan Hayes (producer) Deleted Scenes-x 12 Featurette-Making Of-Under the Radar: The Making of Contraband Featurette-Behind The Scenes-Reality Factor: The Stunts and Action of Contraband More…-U-Control Picture in Picture Mode
Rating
Year Of Production	2012
Running Time	109:38
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Ads Then Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Baltasar Kormákur
Studio Distributor	Universal Pictures Home Video	Starring	Robert Wahlberg Caleb Landry Jones Jason Mitchell Paul LeBlanc Mark Wahlberg Ben Foster Lukas Haas
Case	Standard Blu-ray
RPI	?	Music	Clinton Shorter

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English DTS HD Master Audio 5.1 German dts 5.1 (768Kb/s) Spanish dts 5.1 (768Kb/s) English Descriptive Audio Dolby Digital 2.0 English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	1080p
Original Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English Chinese Danish Icelandic German Greek Finnish Korean Norwegian Spanish Swedish Portuguese	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

     Chris Farraday (Mark Wahlberg) is a retired smuggler living happily in New Orleans with his wife Kate (Kate Beckinsale) and two young sons. He is pulled back into his old life when Kate’s younger brother Andy (Celeb Landry Jones) brings in a shipment of drugs for Tom Briggs (Giovanni Ribisi) but throws the drugs overboard when the ship is boarded by US Customs. Briggs is not happy and puts Andy in hospital. Chris tries to make a deal with Briggs who gives Chris a choice: come up with the money to replace the drugs or his wife and family will be hurt.

     Chris decides to make one final smuggling run to Panama. With the help of his friend Sebastian (Ben Foster), Chris, Andy and Danny (Lukas Haas) sign on as crew on Chris’ father’s old ship, now under the command of Captain Camp (J.K. Simmons). In Panama Chris uses his smuggling contacts to acquire a load of counterfeit US money. But things, of course, do not go to plan as it appears that some of his friends are not what they seem. Amid the escalating problems Chris struggles to bring into New Orleans the contraband that will save his wife and sons.

     Contraband is a remake of the Icelandic thriller Reykjavik - Rotterdam (2008). That film was directed by Oskar Jonasson and starred Baltasar Kormakur in the role here played in by Mark Wahlberg. Now Kormakur is the director of Contraband, an interesting cross mix of roles.

     Contraband says nothing new and the film has had mixed reviews. However, it is competent enough; fast moving, chaotic in the action sequences and reasonably tense in places. I find Mark Wahlberg an actor with a limited range but here his lack of animation works fine in a film with no character arc to speak of. As the main villain Giovanni Ribisi is not a particularly interesting and the beautiful Kate Beckinsale is pretty much wasted. On the other hand, the film looks fabulous, making full use of the Panama Canal and New Orleans locations, courtesy of cinematographer Barry Ackroyd. However, some of the fight scenes, with jerky hand held cameras that come in close and basically focussed on motion, are confusing. Perhaps the intention was to give the film a realistic feel, much as Ackroyd achieved in The Hurt Locker (2008) or The Green Zone (2010) but here it feels overdone.

     Contraband is a competent thriller with some stunning location photography and a plot that moves along at full speed.

Video

     Contraband is presented in an aspect ratio of 2.35:1, the original aspect ratio, in 1080p, using the MPEG-4 AVC code.

     The print is crisp and nicely detailed. Blacks and shadow detail are excellent, seen to great effect in the night sequences of the ships on the river in New Orleans with the lights of the city in the background while the customs helicopter hovers overhead. The colours have been desaturated, as is often the case these days, with the result that the film has a brownish look, especially evident in skin tones. Other than slight ghosting with movement in front of certain backgrounds, such as wire (46:43), artefacts were absent.

     Subtitles are available in a range of languages. English subtitles appear automatically to translate the non-English dialogue in Panama.

Video Ratings Summary

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Shadow Detail
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Film-To-Video Artefacts
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Audio

     Audio track options are English DTS-HD MA 5.1, German and Spanish DTS 5.1 (at 768 Kbps), plus English Descriptive Audio and English Commentary, both Dolby Digital 2.0 at 192 Kbps.

     The English DTS- HD MA 5.1 is as expected in a modern action thriller. Dialogue is sometimes unclear but there are always the subtitles. The surrounds are constantly in action with music, engines, gunshots and ambient sound, but it is not overdone and results in a nice balanced, enveloping sound mix. The subwoofer supports the music, engines and action when required.

     The original score by Clinton Shorter is appropriate and is supported by a number of mostly blues songs, including Boom Boom, the John Lee Hooker classic. The film is set in New Orleans after all.

     Lip synchronisation was fine.

Audio Ratings Summary

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Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

     On start-up we get an advertisement for 100 years of Universal studios (2:27). There is also a decent array of extras.

Deleted Scenes (6:24)

     Twelve deleted scenes, some very short. There is commentary or indication about where they fit in the film, but after watching the film it is easy to tell. There is also a useful “play all” option.

Under the Radar: The Making of Contraband (17:02)

     A superficial EPK, as shown by the fact that in 17 minutes we get sound bites from 11 cast and 9 crew, including the director, cinematographer, producer, AD, effects and stunt coordinators, plus some film and behind the scenes footage. Some superficial information about casting, locations, plot points, the previous version of the film, the director and how nice everyone was to work with.

Reality Factor: The Stunts and Action of Contraband (7:56)

     More of the same, with basically the same people as the previous featurette, but concentrating on a few of the stunt and action sequences. More interesting, showing how some of the stunts were done.

Commentary: Director / Producer Baltasar Kormakur and Producer Evan Hayes

     An entertaining and worthwhile commentary. The two talk constantly and cover such things as the differences between the Icelandic original and this remake, the logistics of shooting on the river and in Panama, the actors’ previous roles, plot points, intentions, continuity errors and trivia, such as that Kate Beckinsale cannot drive and the problems this caused. Well worth a listen.

U-Control Picture in Picture Mode

     Consists of ten sections that can be selected while watching the film. Some behind the scenes footage but mostly cast and crew talking about such things as plot points, characterisations, locations and how wonderful everything and everyone was.

     The Region A US Blu-ray and the Region Free UK Blu-ray releases are the same as ours except for some audio and subtitle options.

     Contraband is a competent thriller with some stunning location photography and a plot that moves along at full speed. It is an enjoyable enough way to spend a couple of hours.

     The video and audio is fine. There is a good range of extras. They are more EPK than anything else but they are the same as available in other regions.

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Audio
Extras
Plot
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