Mark Wahlberg
has had quite a varied career, from being best known for his foray into the music world as part of Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch, to scoring several big hits in comedy movies like Ted, Daddy’s Home, and The Family Plan. However, he has also proven himself as something of a tough guy – both good and bad – and two action movies featuring the actor have given him a one-two positioning on Starz streaming platform despite both films holding poor ratings from critics.
Top of the movie chart on Starz is Flight Risk
, the Mel Gibson-directed airborne thriller that finds Wahlberg in a rare villain role, playing a balding hitman bent on preventing a witness from testifying against a powerful mob boss. The film landed in cinemas back in January, and managed to pull in a healthy $44 million at the box office (double its $22 million budget), but even though it pleased audiences, the film only scored 30% on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer, and carried the opinion that its “high-octane dumb fun” was just took much for its own good. This is something emphasized by Matt Hudson of the Bloody Awesome Movie Podcast, who wrote:
“When the most interesting aspect is Mark Wahlberg’s hairstyle choice, you know you’re on a hiding to nothing.”
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However, that hasn’t stopped Flight Risk finding new life on its new streaming home of Starz, and it has been joined by one of his older action thrillers, Contraband, the 2017 movie that has found itself at number two on the chart as part of a Wahlberg double bill.
Mark Wahlberg’s ‘Contraband’ Has Infiltrated Streaming Charts
If there is one thing that is almost guaranteed with any action thriller, it is that, no matter how panned it is, someone, somewhere, will begin clicking on it when it lands on a new streaming platform and is promoted by notifications and page banners. Contraband
is such a movie, as although the film was a “split down the middle” affair when it came to both critical and audience reviews, it continues to draw a crowd on its new home of Starz.
Just like Flight Risk, Wahlberg’s name seemed to be enough to get people into cinemas when Contraband was released in 2012, as the movie turned its $25 million budget into a $96 million worldwide gross, defying its 50% Tomatometer score and 56% Popcornmeter rating. The Baltasar Kormakur-directed action movie was certainly not short on talent, with Wahlberg being joined by Kate Beckinsale, Ben Foster, J.K. Simmons, Lukas Haas, and, before his huge role in the Star Wars franchise, Diego Luna. However, some just couldn’t anything novel or new about the predictable plot.
But, it is an action movie, and as long as it could produce enough action to keep audiences entertained, then that is all it really needed to do in order to pay its way. However, it still gained itself the less than complimentary consensus of:
“It’s more entertaining than your average January action thriller, but that isn’t enough to excuse Contraband’s lack of originality and unnecessarily convoluted plot.”
One audience review from Oaklee D, however, managed to explain one reason why the movie did so well at the box office. They wrote, “Your standard stereotypical Mark Wahlberg action flick.” Many action stars, such as Jason Statham, Dolph Lundgren, and Bruce Willis, prior to his retirement, have made a lengthy career rinsing and repeating movies that deliver punches, gun fights, and a plot that doesn’t need too much thought. Wahlberg has found himself in exactly that good company as an action star whose name is capable of making a generic movie a hit.
Now, fans can have a double-bill of Flight Risk and Contraband on Starz and enjoy two of Wahlberg’s divisive but incredibly popular high-flying, action-packed blockbusters back-to-back.
Source: FlixPatrol
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