“Contraband,” starring Mark Wahlberg, is an action-thriller that seemed to falter instead of entertain. According to Rotten Tomatoes, the critics gave the film about a man who is forced to come back to a life of crime a 48% while the audience gave it a 64%.

Overall, the critics thought the film was more entertaining than expected. “It’s more entertaining than your average January action thriller,” wrote Rotten Tomatoes, “but that isn’t enough to excuse ‘Contraband”s lack of originality and unnecessarily convoluted plot.”

That’s what the critical consensus is; let’s see what the critics had to say individually.

“Hiring the director of the film this is based on, the Icelandic thriller ‘Reykjavik-Rotterdam,’ pays off not so much in the American-rewritten script, which follows a hard-bitten formula, even down to the dialogue.” –Roger Moore, The Orlando Sentinel

“While the jumping-off point for the New Orleans-set ‘Contraband,’ his latest action movie, is as hackneyed as hackneyed gets…it piles on complications and veers in new directions with such impressive dispatch that it more often than not sweeps the viewer past a bunch of plausibility checkpoints with no concerns save how the hero’s gonna get out of his next nasty jam. It’s a good, chugging caper movie for the most part.”–Glenn Kenny, MSN Movies

“Just the idea of Mark Wahlberg playing a smuggler unable to go straight sounds like a dream popcorn movie. But ‘Contraband’…goes down in a sea of Hollywood cliches…Wahlberg could sleepwalk through this role, and does. See this movie and you’re surely follow his lead.” Peter Travers, Rolling Stone.

What do you think about the film? Give your opinion in the comments section below.

Written by: Monique Jones