Sluggish Cargo

CAST: Mark Wahlberg,Kate Beckinsale,Giovanni Ribisi,Ben Foster

Rating: **

The stocky hulk of the heroic Wahlberg is becoming something of a constant in films involving drugs and organised crime. What will capture you here is the giant hulk of the ship he takes to Panama as transport on one such “job”. It is a cargo ship with huge containers transporting stuff,and in one of these containers,Chris (Wahlberg) hopes to get in the contraband.

He is known as the “Houdini” of smugglers because of his felicity in getting in such stuff past border checks. However he has quit all that for a life of domesticity with loving wife Kate (Beckinsale) and two football-playing boys. Then no-good brother-in-law finds himself in drug trouble and needing $700,000 to get him out,Chris decides to make one more “run”.

There is nothing you haven’t seen here before,except director Kormakur,remaking his own Icelandic film and setting it all the way down in Panama,who never pauses long enough to ponder that. What stops you short,however,is how many times the two young kids of Chris have a gun pointed at them — and without any lasting damage.