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Mark Wahlberg is a Roman Catholic who goes to church every day to pray to be a better servant of God, a better man.

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This weekend’s new action film “Contraband” might be 90-plus minutes worth of Deja View.

Mark Wahlberg stars as a retired smuggler forced to take on “one last mission” to save “his wife and kids” from “an out of control” thug, but when said mission “doesn’t go as planned” he’s forced to “save the day” by “any means necessary.”

“Contraband” might win some sort of green award for such diligent recycling, but with a better than required cast the film nicks our pleasure centers just enough to recommend it.

Wahlberg clearly isn’t taxing himself here, but he makes his character’s heroics feel grounded enough to stop any snickering. Or most, at the very least.

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Sensei extended his streak last week. His streak at calling the correct #1 film now sits at eight straight weeks. That streak faces a tough test as three new releases could all take the top spot.

All calls this weekend are 4 day (Fri-Mon) to incorporate the holiday weekend:

1. Contraband ($24 million) – Up to a few weeks ago, this weekend appeared an easy win for “Beauty And The Beast 3D.” This is in light of the success “Lion King 3D” had last year. Things have now changed. With the success of “Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol” leading the way, action audiences are more likely to see “Contraband.” It also helps to have actor Mark Wahlberg star, which may attract audiences nostalgic for “The Italian Job” and hence lead to this surprise finish.

2. Beauty And The Beast ($20 million) – Sensei did very well predicting “Lion King 3D”’s run at the top, and the addition of the new short film “Tangled Ever After” will help this film be the prime draw for families throughout the weekend. “Contraband” will open very strong early though, making it tough to catch. “Beast” will close the gap, but we predict “Contraband” holds for the win.

3. Joyful Noise ($15.7 million) – Dolly Parton’s latest project is fun and lively, and the film’s musical pedigree will help its box office tremendously. Queen Latifah is a very good box office draw, and as long as this film stays positive (no political or controversial sucker punches), it will do very well this weekend.

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“Contraband” wastes considerable energy, and several likable performers, in taking us to a place we’ve visited far too many times before. Although the story concerns drug-smuggling, and is set in New Orleans and at the Panama Canal, this is a by-the-numbers heist flick of such predictability that at several points you wonder why it’s even unfolding.

An anticipatory indifference sets in right at the beginning, as we meet Chris Farraday (Mark Wahlberg), a one-time smuggler who’s gone legit and now lives happily with his wife Kate (Kate Beckinsale) and their two kids. When Chris is approached at a bar by an old underworld colleague and asked if he has thought about getting back into the crime business, we wonder…well, we wonder nothing: We know exactly where this is headed.

Then Kate’s younger brother Andy (Caleb Landry Jones) becomes involved in a coke-smuggling run for a Crescent City scumbag named Briggs (Giovanni Ribisi with a hide full of tattoos and a wheezy Looziana accent). When Andy is forced to ditch the drugs he’s carrying back in order to avoid a customs bust, Chris has no choice but to make a run of his own in order to raise enough money to compensate Briggs, who will otherwise kill all concerned.

Read the full review at Reason.com

 Yeah, sure I do. You were the pride of Lowell. You were my hero, Dicky.

In fairness to those reading this review and those involved in the creation of “The Fighter,” I’m going to confess upfront that  expectations probably diminished my enjoyment of what is arguably an impressive, quality film with a number of exceptional (and Oscar-worthy) performances.  Before moving to Los Angeles in 2003, when I had the nine-to-five life that made such things possible, I was a boxing fanatic who followed the sport religiously on HBO, Showtime, and pay-per-view; I also subscribed to all the magazines, and mourned the cancellation of  the USA Network’s Tuesday Night Fights as though a favorite Aunt had had passed on.

During the 1990’s and the early aughts, there were all kinds of memorable fighters and fights, but nothing like the storied 2002-2003 trilogy between “Irish” Micky Ward and the late, great, and legendary Arturo “Thunder” Gatti.

These two men were never the most talented boxers in their respective weight classes, they were something more. They aspired to greatness in every fight, were incapable of quitting, and had more heart than every superstar, belt-holding millionaire champion put together. We the fans adored these two and when HBO brought them together on May the 18th, 2002, for a fight with no belt or title or championship at stake, everything one loves about the always frustrating and frequently maddening sweet science came together over 10 unforgettable rounds that saw two warriors become living legends. Their second fight was just as good, the third was a rapture beyond my ability to articulate. If you saw it, you know what I mean.

“The Fighter,” unfortunately, roll its credits before any of this takes place. For whatever reason, the filmmakers weren’t interested in the making of an immortal, they were interested in the more provincial aspects of Micky’s (a very good Mark Wahlberg) relationship with his troubled, older brother Dicky (an exceptional Christian Bale) and his difficult mother Alice (an outstanding Melissa Leo). Set in the mid-90’s, when we first meet Micky he’s running out of his prime fighting years at the age of 30, considered nothing more than a stepping stone for bigger names in the fight game, a weekend father, and making ends meet in the city of Lowell, Massachusetts on a road-paving crew. This is a truly decent and gentle man who loves and is loyal to a family that also happens to be his primary problem in life.

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“The Fighter” is an actors’ film. Unlike other movies that feature one or two strong roles, this new boxing film features four strong characters and four great performances. Mark Wahlberg, Melissa Leo, Christian Bale and Amy Adams all excel in the story of a fighter whose opponents in the ring aren’t the only obstacles standing in the way of  his success.

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The movie starts with a film crew videotaping an emaciated former boxer named Dicky Eklund (Bale). Dicky believes that he’s being recorded for a documentary about his long-awaited comeback. He’s a local legend in Lowell, Massachusetts who is well known for knocking Sugar Ray Leonard to the ground in a fight he lost years earlier. Dicky thinks that he’s on the way back to the ring. In truth, he isn’t heading back to the ring anytime soon and the documentary isn’t about his comeback. It’s about his addiction to crack and how that addiction is controlling his life.

One of the people most affected by Dicky’s addiction is his half-brother Micky (Wahlberg), who is pursuing a boxing career of his own. As an underdog, Micky is known as a stepping stone for other boxers.  However, Micky’s trying to become a champion himself. He’s training with his half-brother but Dicky’s drug addiction often stands in his way.

There are two groups of people supporting Micky in his quest to become a great fighter. His mother (Melissa Leo) and many of his sisters want Mickey to train solely with Dicky, in spite of the latter’s drug addiction and irresponsibility. They ignore Dicky’s poor lifestyle and his  frequent trips to a local crack house. The other group supporting Micky include his new girlfriend Charlene (Amy Adams) and an older policeman named O’ Keefe, who is played by the real police sergeant who helped train the real Micky Ward. They want Micky to train with professionals who won’t hold him back with their own personal problems.  (more…)

We don’t choose the families we’re born into, and yet we are shaped for better or worse by the people we are forced to live with for at least the first 18 years of our lives. Most people luck out and find love, support and friendship from the ones they grow up around. Others suffer lives of physical or emotional abuse. But then, perhaps the hardest situation of all to deal with is when the person who is stuck in a sort of limbo, whose family loves them and wants the best for them but simply has no clue whatsoever bout how to provide it.

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That’s the kind of dilemma that Boston boxer Micky Ward (Mark Wahlberg) faces in the new biopic “The Fighter.” At heart, he is a quiet, soulful man who wants to do the right thing with his life – and yet, he has been surrounded by a family of drunken, uneducated losers who have forced him into a life of journeyman boxing and still seek to control his career moves well into his 30s. That’s because Micky is the younger half-brother of Dickie Eklund (Christian Bale), a once-promising prizefighter who got hooked on crack a decade ago and has been spiraling downward ever since.

And so it is that Micky is forced to live as a surrogate for Dickie’s dashed dreams and abject failures, taking the literal punches that Dickie avoids both in the ring, and outside it by sucking on a haze of cloudy crack smoke. But two things are about to shake up the brothers’ lives and give Micky a chance to finally pursue his own dreams on his own terms: Micky meets a bartender named Charlene (Amy Adams) who encourages him to pursue a better life and offers him unconditional love, and Dickie finally is snapped into awareness about his pathetic life by an HBO documentary he thought was about his delusional “comeback” but which in reality set him up as an example of the destructive influence of crack in America. (more…)

We’ve all watched well-known, highly regarded actors for the umpteenth time on screen — perhaps even raucously enjoying both their performance and the movie — and thought about how painfully derivative and self-referential they’ve become. Somewhere along the way, over a period of many years, these talented thespians stopped surprising us. They ceased bringing to life fleshed out individuals and  began using and reusing tired sets of predictable quirks and tics.

Mind you, they’re still charismatic and entertaining to watch, but in an almost clownish way. We now go to see them not to be wowed by their acting, but to be entertained by their chewing the scenery and hamming it up. Whereas in the past they lost themselves in a part, now their well-known, theatrically overblown personalities overwhelm everything else on screen.

Who are the worst offenders? My own Top 5 list was compiled with two ground rules: each candidate had to be alive (so James Dean and Marlon Brando each get a reprieve), and they have to have won at least one Academy Award for acting (which spares modern, less-laurelled hams such as Robert Downey Jr., Johnny Depp, Woody Allen, Jeff Goldblum and Mel Gibson.) Again, the following actors are not necessarily unpleasant to watch — raw charisma goes a long way — but they have become predictably one-note parodies of themselves. (more…)

While growing up in the ‘80s, one of the most popular genres of films were buddy-cop films. Filled with wisecracking banter between two mismatched, big-city cops – one fat, one fit; or one black, one white – along with fast-paced action and a plot that often barely mattered, films like “48 Hrs.,” “Tango & Cash” and even the first two “Beverly Hills Cop” films were fun ways to turn your brain off and kill a couple hours at the cineplex.

But even these movies lost their appeal due to lackluster sequels like the third “Beverly” or “Another 48 Hrs.” (yep, Eddie Murphy was one of the kings of these flicks). And over the past decade, they largely seemed to disappear like some forgotten relic of the 20th century, doomed to be played back on dusty VHS tapes by middle-aged men.

Yet hope springs eternal for fans of this underrated genre, as Hollywood has sprung not one but two of these films upon an unsuspecting public since spring: “Cop Out,” which matched Bruce Willis up against Tracy Morgan, deservedly did so-so business. And now Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg (see what I mean about mismatched teams?) are starring in the new spoof “The Other Guys,” in which they play two hapless desk-bound cops in the NYPD who suddenly get a shot at real action when the department’s best team of daredevils – played in cameos by Duane “The Rock” Johnson and Samuel L. Jackson – get killed on the job in hilariously freakish fashion. (more…)

I caught a screening of writer/director Adam McKay’s “The Other Guys” over the weekend. Politics aside, let’s just say that the Will Ferrell action-comedy is nothing close to their previous collaboration, “Step Brothers,” which is actually kinda brilliant. Amusing, but not ever terribly funny and surprisingly cheap looking for a production budget reported to be $90 million, “The Other Guys” is also an unqualified box-office success where Ferrell man-childs like he always does, Mark Wahlberg (an actor I like) confuses LOUD with funny, and the idea of riffing on 80’s action films — using tropes that include everything from a lonely saxophone score to all the familiar plot beats — is already a trope itself, having been done before.

Adam McKay and scarf

There are, however, a couple of memorably funny scenes, including a deliriously inspired and plot-turning leap off a very tall building and Wahlberg’s reaction when he first meets Ferrell’s wife, played by the striking Eva Mendes. For at least 75 of the 107 minutes you’ll have a smile on your face and enjoy a few honest laughs even as you wonder why the cinematography’s so bright and all the expensive action is unnecessarily hyper-edited.

Amusing devolves into outright tedious in the third act, unfortunately, when the plot turns hard-left thanks to a confusing, uninteresting, unfunny, and unnecessarily preachy investment banking plot and stakes that never rise above having to stop a wire transfer. Without spoiling the specifics (though I will below), let’s just say that never for a second did I believe that what might have been lost in that wire transfer wouldn’t have been immediately made up within days using taxpayer money in the form of a bailout. Which brings me to the now infamous “Other Guys” end credits: (more…)

The last thing I was worrying about was that The Other Guys would be too preachy.  Sure, Will Ferrell has a long history of deep, thought-provoking critiques of society and culture, so that should have been my big concern.  Also subtitles.  And having the last shot of the film be the word “Fin” superimposed over the freeze-framed image of a crying child alone on a beach symbolizing death or something. 

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You know, sometimes you just want to go, have a drink or two, or three, or ten, and then sit in a movie theater and tune out the seemingly endless parades of nimrods, pinkos and sanctimonious deadbeats who make up so much of our society today.  You just want some guys to come on the screen and to do and say some funny stuff.  Maybe you want an explosion or two, perhaps a gratuitous shower scene – strike that, as shower scenes are never gratuitous.  Unless it’s a dude.  Or Kathy Bates.

The point is the last thing you want after a Dos XX prep and handing over $11.75 each for yourself and your life partner/designated driver is for a bunch of Hollywood half-wits to stop the fun to give you a PowerPoint briefing on their insights into modern politics – without even the PowerPoint.  And it appears that this is exactly what The Other Guys intends to do. (more…)

This is not a not a review of The Other Guys. It’s more of a statement of disbelief.

There’s actually some funny history between that film, Big Hollywood and my site ScreenRant.com – we posted the trailer for it a couple months ago and one of my writers commented that it looked funny. The result was that Editor-in-Chief John Nolte accused my site of being part of the “Left wing media establishment.”

Biggest laugh I’d had in a while, let me tell you. [Ed. Note: It was all a deliberate trap to convince Vic to join BH. I'm hoping it will work with Patrick Goldstein and Jeff Wells, as well.] 

Anyway… I didn’t go in to The Other Guys expecting much (I think that the buddy cop/action film parody was done to perfection with Edgar Wright’s Hot Fuzz), but I was mildly surprised to find myself chuckling throughout and laughing out loud more than once.

Until John pointed it out in the aforementioned story, I didn’t know the political affiliations of Adam McKay or anyone else behind the film – but having been educated I went in forewarned and expecting to be beat about the head with political potshots. (more…)

Slated for release on August 6, 2010, “The Other Guys,” written by Adam McKay and Chris Henchy and starring Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg (whose “funky” credentials expired a long time ago), offer viewers a film that is:

“Set in New York City, … [and] follows Detective Allen Gamble (Will Ferrell), a forensic accountant who’s more interested in paperwork than hitting the streets, and Detective Terry Hoitz (Mark Wahlberg), who has been stuck with Allen as his partner ever since an embarrassing public incident with his quick trigger finger. Allen and Terry idolize the city’s top cops, Danson and Manzetti (Dwayne Johnson and Samuel L. Jackson), but when an opportunity arises for the Other Guys to step up, things don’t quite go as planned.”

No big deal. We see these sorts of cop comedies all the time: Opposite personalities are forced to work together. They constantly clash. They bungle assignments. Then they come to an understanding and manage to save the day.

A sneak peek at the script tells us that there are a few moments that will irk conservatives, including a “hilarious” reminder that we have a “black president” and that it’s time to stop stereotyping, even though there’s no stereotyping involved in the scene. Get it? Ha ha. But that’s all typical for this kind of in-your-face, over-the-top comedy film. (more…)

Nearly every long-term couple hits some rough patches – periods in time where they lose their once-boiling attraction for each other and perhaps even forget what they loved about their partners in the first place. Phil and Claire Foster, a suburban New Jersey couple with two young kids and utterly boring careers, are a perfect example of this marital ennui.

In the new action-comedy “Date Night,” the Fosters (played by Steve Carell and Tina Fey) get a chance to break out of their rut in a big way when they pretend to be a couple called the Tripplehorns in order to snag a table at the hottest new restaurant in New York City. Before their meal is even over, two dirty cops (Common and Jimmi Simpson) have forced them into a back alley and threaten to kill the Fosters because the cops truly believe they’re the Tripplehorns and that the Tripplehorns are in possession of a very incriminating and valuable flash drive.

This case of mistaken identity leads the Fosters into the craziest night of their lives, one in which they’ll engage in a spectacular and hilarious car chase (frankly, one of the best ever staged on film), gunfights, break-ins, burglaries and even stripping (don’t ask) en route to rekindling their spark and realizing they have far more adventurous sides than they’ve ever realized. (more…)

“My name is Salmon, like the fish. First name, Susie. I was fourteen years old when I was murdered on December 6th, 1973.”

After a limited theatrical run for what is likely to be a fruitless search for year-end award affection, director/co-writer Peter Jackson’s “Lovely Bones” finally goes wide in a couple thousand movie palaces today to in order to prove to every American that winning an Academy Award can turn an otherwise talented director into the very definition of tone deaf and self-indulgent.

Jackson’s film is a serious one dealing with big themes involving child murder and grief and justice and the afterlife. But incredibly, dropped right in the middle of all this harrowing drama, is a flat-out comedy montage straight out of a Chris Columbus movie that has Susan Sarandon’s grandmother-character fumbling and stumbling about like Uncle Buck with the household chores, including — yes! — an out-of-control washing machine. Better yet, it’s all set to a pop song.

Maybe the projectionist was having a laugh with a deleted scene from “Mr. Woodcock.” Regardless, it was the equivalent of a cinematic silver bullet. The movie never recovered. (more…)

It’s the middle of the Christmas movie season, and you’re likely aiming to see escapist romps like “Sherlock Holmes” or family fare like “The Princess and the Frog.” Is anyone out there ready for a holiday film about the rape and murder of a 14-year-old girl and the impact it has on her family?

Apparently Paramount Pictures thought it was a fine time to release “The Lovely Bones,” Oscar-winning writer-director Peter Jackson’s (“The Lord of the Rings” trilogy) first film since creating the vastly overblown remake of “King Kong” in 2005. Sure, it’s based on the novel by Alice Sebold, which has proven to be one of the decade’s biggest best-sellers, but considering how unpleasant and jarring much of the film is, it joins the list of works that suffer in translation from the page to the screen. (more…)

There are few things more unappealing than the orgy of self-adulation one witnesses during a celebrity awards show.

Yes, the Oscar nominations are here, and America simply can’t afford to stand idly by anymore. Not after the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences had the audacity to misleadingly claim that Brad Pitt had not only engaged in acting this past year, but that he was among the finest to practice the craft.

Absurdity of such scope is one of the reasons the Oscars continue to lose viewers and hemorrhage influence. Sometimes it seems the academy has a desire to disconnect from the average moviegoer. Last year’s Oscar telecast, accordingly, logged the show’s tiniest audience on record. (more…)