Baltasar Kormákur

It’s worth an afternoon at the IMAX theater to take in the sights on ‘Everest,’ but don’t expect any new insight into this harrowing tragedy.

In today’s trailer-analyzing, spoiler-focused culture, it’s a wonderful thing simply to be surprised by a film. The trailer for 2 Guns promised a bland, straightforward action movie starring Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg: wisecracks, gunfire, car chase, kidnapped girlfriend sets up an explosive climax. The actual film has all of those things in it, but they are connected in complex and unusual ways that remove all of the blandness and make the film much more enjoyable than might be expected.

Best known in the English-speaking world for his Hollywood thriller, Contraband, starring Mark Wahlberg, Baltasar Kormákur returns to his native Iceland to direct the tale of one of its modern legends. In 1984, a fishing boat sunk off the coast of Westman Islands, killing its entire crew with the sole exception of the unassuming Gulli (Ólafur Darri Ólafsson). Incredibly, despite being overweight and a heavy drinker, he survived by swimming for up to six hours through the treacherous waters of the North Atlantic Ocean, becoming a national hero and scientific phenomenon in the process.

Contraband Directed by Baltasar Kormákur Screenplay by Aaron Guzikowski USA/UK/France, 2012 The worst sin committed by Contraband is one of false advertising. In every way this has been promoted as an action film, as Wahlberg plays a former smuggling legend who has settled down with his wife (Kate Beckinsale) and a business designing alarm systems for wealthy …