Contraband and Savages are films offering a taste of the drug-smuggling world. Contraband relates a journey on a container ship from Panama to New Orleans with cocaine, counterfeit bills and stolen art aboard. Mark Wahlberg does the deal with Diego Luna against his will and with a death threat hanging over his family. The movie provides a rare look inside these ocean transports, which play a key role in the global economy yet function almost like sovereign nations at sea.
Savages involves brutal Mexican mobs moving their marijuana into California. This means absorbing or eliminating "kinder, gentler" surfer dude grow-ops. Thus, warlords Salma Hayak and Benicio Del Toro muscle in on a weed partnership and menage a trois between a blonde beach babe, a pacifist hippie and an alpha male enforcer.
