Contraband

A former smuggler (Mark Wahlberg), trying to go legit, gets pulled back into the business when his brother-in-law screws up and his family is threatened. This paper caper takes us from New Orleans to Panama City in a shell game where everything goes wrong and plenty of bad guys crawl out of the woodwork. A good cast of characters (Ben Foster, Giovanni Ribsis, J.K. Simmons, and the beautiful Kate Beckinsale) fill out the line up, but don't live up to their past potential. The plot is rather run of the mill and implausible, but it has enough entertainment value to get the audience going with a big payoff at the end to put a smile on their faces.

Alien gives it 2 ½ "the art of smuggling funny money" stars out of 4.