Cargo (2006)

I picked this up for a fiver in HMV after browsing the DVD section. I was drawn by the box and thought it was a horror. I did not read all about its's awards etc and thought it was an out and out horror.It is not - it is a slow burning thriller.As the film went on I started to emphasise with the main character. What would I do in his shoes - was it right to keep your head down and say and do nothing.I thought all the characters were played well although I thought the captain played by Peter Millen, from my neighbouring town Peterhead, could have been a little more menacing and not so much brooding - it looked though he was in physical pain rather than emotional. Special mention to Gary Lewis and Samuli Edelmann. Good character actors with something simmering below the surface.Well worth a look.

This is a delight. I have seldom seen so much achieved with so little. What a crew! What accents! This reminds me of the Bill Hicks sketch where he recalls that Brits seldom have more than a soccer ball to threaten people with.This German kid makes the big mistake of going to Africa outside of a World Cup event. Next the mistake of running out of funds. Falling foul of the militia. Losing his passport. And then the chance to get back to Europe on a cargo ship.We, who like films, are always looking for little gems that slip through the Net. They are not put together by committee. They are not put together on someone's PC. Things don't blow up every five minutes. The hero does not dodge all the bullets sent his way.One of the best captains I have seen.

The movie starts off establishing Chris as an unsympathetic, dubious character. He steals a bracelet after a man refuses to sell it to him; not only that, Chris treats the vendor with obvious contempt, without any reason. A little later, he has an altercation with the local police, in which he frees himself by head-butting one. Now, regular German students (or young people) visiting any country for tourist reason do NOT even know where to begin with executing a head-butt, let alone perform one on a cop. Hence, we have to assume that Chris is an unsavory character at best.And yet, as events unfold on the ship, Chris turns out to be a person of principle, ready to risk his own neck to save a couple of stowaways that he barely even knows. So what triggered this sudden change in him? Or are we merely looking at another badly written movie character? I tend toward the latter.Whether Chris is badly written or badly understood hence played by the German actor Bruhl, there is definitely something "off" about his behaviour throughout the movie. There is no indication early on that Chris is a moron, and yet he behaves like one on several occasions once he has been discovered on the ship: 1) he practically laughs at the blond guy whom he caught masturbating, 2) he is rude without a reason toward Mullen while shaving him, 3) he is told to remain locked in his room, yet he goes to the deck to spy on the crew, 4) he goes through Mullen's drawers, taking risks that are far too unnecessary, especially for someone in his shoes. His behaviour on the ship is that of a misbehaving, overly curious child, i.e. not of an illegal passenger who is supposed to keep a low profile in a place that is very obviously run by criminals.The other somewhat problematic character is the one played by Mullen. Here is a man who kills his best friend on the ship by repeatedly smashing his head in, who has African stowaways thrown overboard to their deaths without so much as flinching, and who had already killed even his own son by breaking his neck! And yet the captain is plagued by remorse that seems to be far too strong for a person of that kind of extremely low moral fiber.Mullen's treatment of Chris is bafflingly permissive and soft, which we much later find out was the result of Chris resembling his dead son. That, of course, explains why Mullen looked at him so intensely in the bar when they were all still on land. Chris is not only an illegal passenger, but his behaviour is provocative, to say the least. In the end, as Chris drowns, Mullen is overcome with guilt, as if witnessing a renewed murder of his dead son. He breaks down completely, starts sobbing and even orders the entire crew to leave the ship! Somehow none of this feels very realistic. Someone who exhibits psychopathic violent tendencies is almost always devoid of empathy, let alone guilt or love for anyone, even for a family member. Mullen plays a person that cannot exist in the real world."Cargo" is an interesting, moody film that promises a lot but ultimately disappoints with its mostly banal conclusion. There are hints of ghosts, of supernatural forces plaguing the ship (the strange sounds, coupled with the birds' behaviour), but in the end it's all just a puff of smoke. Little is explained. We never find out who made those noises, nor do we understand why the crew are disappearing. Are they being killed by ghosts or - as one person here wrote - killed themselves due to guilt by jumping overboard. That's an interesting theory, but not very plausible. Were they killed by the illegal passengers? Not too likely; they are not presented as that dangerous.Chris's death is a little weird, too. He jumps into the ocean to rescue Subira, but she refuses to connect hands! I tell ya, when you're drowning, your very strong instinctive reaction is to grab the hand of WHOMEVER is offering it to you, and may it even be Hitler's or Stalin's. A very unconvincing scene. As a result, Chris drowns - while Subira saves herself! "Cargo" had potential, but somewhere along the line there must have been too much last-minute tempering with the script. I have no other explanation...So what is the movie about? In the words of the famous 20th-century poet The Notorious B.I.G.: "My cargo, escargot...". Sorry, no idea what this means, but neither had the murdered fatso.

The theme seems somewhat of interest, and it could have held attention if it were not for Daniel Brühl's character, "Chris", who is annoying to an extreme. For some reason, that the viewer is never able to understand, the incredibly innocuous Chris is able to screw up everything he touches from scene one until the grand finale. Anyone with even half a brain, finding himself in such a perilous state, would lay the lowest profile possible in an attempt to merely survive - which is the exact opposite route taken by Brühl's highly infantile and ridiculous character. After 30 minutes into the flick, you come to detest the guy's guts, wishing that the hostile crew would just fling the half-wit overboard and get it over with.Do yourself a favour - skip this flop.