Set in New Orleans, Contraband is Mark Whalberg’s new thriller about smuggling on container ships. He plays a blue-collar family man who’s sworn off his former life of crime, until his brother-in-law botches a drug deal and needs his help in order to repay the debt. Whalberg agrees to do one last job, running contraband from Panama on a container ship. Kate Beckinsale plays Whalberg’s wife, Ben Foster his best friend and business partner, and Giovanni Ribisi plays a New Orleans drug runner.
A remake of the Icelandic film Reykjavík-Rotterdam (2008), Contraband is directed by Baltasar Kormákur, who played the lead character in the original. At the press conference in New York, Kormákur spoke to a room of journalists about how the project came together, the choice of cinematographer Barry Ackroyd (The Hurt Locker), and his thoughts on the film’s moral ambiguity. Hit the jump for the interview.
Question: I think you’re probably one of Iceland’s most famous directors here—what made you want to do a remake of an Icelandic film? How did you get involved in it and what was your approach to the material?
BALTASAR KORMÁKUR: Well this project was brought me to me in Iceland and I actually thought that the director of the original was asking me to produce the film. Originally though he was actually asking me to act in it. And I had pulled out of acting for a long time. I started my career as an actor and then I started directing in theatre and in ...
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