Do you prefer your Mark Wahlberg action shoot-em-ups with Will Ferrell or without? If it’s the latter, you’re in luck: Wahlberg’s new Contraband is a strictly by-the-numbers affair that subs in Kate Beckinsale for Ferrell (she admittedly has better blonde highlights) in this tale of a reformed crook who gets pulled in for one last heist when his wife’s brother gets mixed up with some criminals. Is there anything out of the ordinary here? A bit: The movie dared to cast twitchy character actors Giovanni Ribisi and Ben Foster (one’s a bad guy, the other’s good), indulge them both their go-to actorly tics like odd facial hair and accents, and let them loose! Can Ribisi and Foster please get their own mano a mano fight scene, a matchup that would prove cathartic for all the times one has stolen a semi-fey, over-the-top sidekick role from the other? We’d even settle for a Lucy/Harpo Marx mirror gag homage!
