Contraband 2012

Decent action movie, it seemed a bit reminiscent of Gone in 60 Seconds where the older brother has to step in because of a boneheaded kid brother trying to be a "tough guy". As a story, it was good enough, and the film had enough action scenes and enough plot twists to keep my attention most of the time. What I really had a hard time with was the lighting through most of the movie. Absolutely awful. I understand "clandestine" and I understand they wanted a lot of this to take place (1) at night and (2) below deck on a ship but the horrid lighting was just intolerable. So many scenes were hard, if not impossible, to follow due to the bad lighting...and this was on a 27" iMac with a 5K Retina display with the brightness turned all the way up. I would love to see them make a sequel of this with (1) better lighing and (2) a better director. There were some times the movie felt very disjointed and scrambled. Overall, I thought it was enjoyable, and the cast pulled off their characters wonderfully. I felt like it was a little bit "over the top" at the conclusion, and yeah, the cheesy ending reminded me (again) of those goofy stories I used to write when I was a kid, where my and all my friends lived happily ever after and we all got "the girl of our dreams". Pretty sappy and almost too much...but still a good movie and one I would recommend. The lighting, though...No excuse.