Wahlberg taking no `Prisoners' in 09

It seems Mark Wahlberg is putting in a real effort to make up for a `disappointing’ 2008. I use `disappointing’ in inverted commas because as a hardcore Wahlberg fan I was definitely not disappointed with any of his performances last year. Critics on the other hand didn’t respond as positively leading to many a Wahlberg-lashing (metaphorically, thank heavens) online. For example, check out this letter to Mark Wahlberg published on the Empire blog which asks him to make better movies in `09. Of course, critics being critics they were all quick to condemn his parts in The Happening and Max Payne but were more than willing to overlook his brilliant turn in We Own The Night which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. Now that you have a bit of background history, it looks like Wahlberg has got a busy year ahead of him. Not only is he starring in Peter Jackson’s film adaption of The Lovely Bones (FYI the film Movie Mazzupial is most looking forward to this year) it has also been announced he will star alongside Will Ferrell in The B-Team, a action comedy about two incompetent cops. See the post February post Taking one for the team for more info. On top of this the sequel to The Italian Job, hilariously titled The Brazilian Job has a 2010 release date so he’ll be working pretty heavily on that. To throw another ingredient in his-return-to-form recipe, it as been announced Wahlberg will star in a dark thriller called Prisoners. Penned by up and comer Aaron Guzikowski, its about a Boston family-man whose 6-year-old daughter and best friend are kidnapped and then he takes matters in to his own hands by kidnapping the man he thinks is responsible. Yawn. This sounds like tired storyline which has been done again and again and again. Think Mel Gibson in Ransom, Denzel Washington in Man On Fire, Bruce Willis in Hostage and more recently Liam Neeson in Taken. This role plays right in to real life Boston boy Wahlberg’s comfort zone but the thing that interests me here is people are comparing the dark nature of the script to films such as The Silence Of The Lambs and Seven, which sounds a lot more promising than a formulaic rehash. Although Wahlberg is confirmed to star, studios are still trying to choose a director. Stay posted for more Prisoners updates.