The Contract (DVD)

...it & chose it on the basis of the actors, title & how recent it was. To be honest, I was just curious.

Story

First we are introduced to a criminal group - ex-military, now assassins, with one new member, preparing for their next mission. They kill a very wealthy man - son of a billionaire & the next victim in their plan. The motive of the killing is connected to the opposition of stem cell research, but little is really ...
...purely doing it for the money. The client is not, to my memory, mentioned. Cardin, the leader of the group then finds himself in a nasty car accident & awakens in hospital handcuffed to the bed. Suddenly the group's plans are at stake. The newcomer seems reluctant to continue, but the remaining members of the group must, if they really want their money, work together to retrieve their arrested leader & complete the contract.

A father ... more

I rented this film recently, but I had heard very little about it & chose it on the basis of the actors, title & how recent it was. To be honest, I was just curious.

Story

First we are introduced to a criminal group - ex-military, now assassins, with one new member, preparing for their next mission. They kill a very wealthy man - son of a billionaire & the next victim in their plan. The motive of the killing is connected to the opposition of stem cell research, but little is really mentioned on this as the killers are contract killers so purely doing it for the money. The client is not, to my memory, mentioned. Cardin, the leader of the group then finds himself in a nasty car accident & awakens in hospital handcuffed to the bed. Suddenly the group's plans are at stake. The newcomer seems reluctant to continue, but the remaining members of the group must, if they really want their money, work together to retrieve their arrested leader & complete the contract.

A father & son, meanwhile, have decided to spend the day out, hiking. Having recently lost his wife to cancer, father, Ray Keene wants to convince his son, Chris that they can still be a proper family - albeit just the two of them. Then they stumble across a fallen car with Cardin & the surviving police officer, ambushed by the group. However, the officer is shot & close to death, so hands the gun over to the father asking him to take over the situation. With very little though, the father decides to 'do the right thing' - encouraged by an insult to his pride by Cardin - so he & his son take the criminal hostage & head for the road where they might get a phone signal & be able to call for help. Unfortunately for them, Cardin's 'friends' are on his way & will kill anyone that stops them from getting Cardin back. As the three trudge through the wilderness, they face all sorts of obstacles & threats from the 'friends' that may stop them ever reaching the police safely.

Family matters

I don't normally talk too much about the story in a film as it is self-explanatory. In the past I have added paragraphs where I felt something to be particularly moving or meaningful. Here, I talk about the story because frankly it annoyed me. For a start, the very idea that it is acceptable for a man, irrespective of his talents or self-confidence, to put his ego before his own son - go ahead & take hostage a blatantly dangerous criminal who will put his own life as well as his son's life in danger is absolutely ridiculous. At the very moment of coming across someone like this, he had the opportunity to walk away. Somehow it was obvious that keeping Cardin hostage only increased the level of danger they would face. The story is too much full of macho-chauvinistic heroics - in the real world I do not think you need to be a woman to know that family comes before all this. It would have been more reasonable if they really had no other choice from the start, therefore the motivation being survival for both of them, rather than the father proving what he can do. I guess the very fact I disliked the basis of the film spoilt the film as a whole for me, although admittedly I still found it enjoyable.

The police

I don't really know much about how things work in the U.S., but I understand from this film: the local police deal only with minor criminals that require little or no skill to detect. The FBI are superior, more intelligent & capable of 'handling' the more complicated, major criminals. The police, in this film spend almost the entire time trying to suck up to the FBI - their jobs being abruptly relegated to finding a decent cup of coffee for the FBI team. They bring a box of doughnuts for team, which are snubbed. Finally, having failed to do anything even remotely productive, the chief police officer goes on TV, to brag about his 'role' in the whole case & is even promoted. This makes no sense whatsoever. I have seen other films that give a similar impression, but this makes me feel quite sad. In the UK I like to think that whatever level, the police are respected for doing their job - & are expected to be equally capable of it - local or not. On the other hand, the FBI don't really do much either (aside the fact one woman in charge is an 'insider'). Perhaps those of you who know more than I do will be able to comment on how well this reflects the US criminal justice system, but I hope it is very inaccurate.

Acting

Please note - I rated characters/performances as weak overall - I genuinely liked Morgan Freeman in this film though.

I have always thought Morgan Freeman to be a fine actor. Freeman, with an incredible background, has a tendency to play such roles that require him to be both a ruthless killer & a genuine human being (Hard Rain - for example). He is often a criminal & never a bad person. This was therefore a perfect film for him, although he did not really pull off the 'seriously dangerous guy' thing at all for me - but more so the human being. You can tell his character is someone that will look after himself before anyone else, yet is secretly wondering whether he couldn't do more good in the world. Yet, Freeman's character can never truly be trusted, maintaining the element of unpredictability in the film. I watched this film, knowing he was in it & therefore expecting it to be a good film. Unfortunately he was one of the only good things about it. Wrong choice there.

Cusack - with his constantly worried facial appearance - was a genuinely protective father, but I found little else good to say about him. Frankly, I find him quite plain & dull. It is not that he is not a good actor, but just that he seems to always be the same person in every film - this one being no exception. At times in the film you expect him to be either quite confident & self-assured or blatantly nervous or doubtful. Yet he seems to be neither. I'm not sure it is possible to relate to someone like this or, as I often like to when watching films, care about him. The father-son relationship was weak, not merely because in the story they were not getting on, but because it never really developed. A key story in the film is that they went hiking in order to rebuild their relationship, yet apart from an argument that at the start that lacked passion & one or two remarks on the journey, like the son telling Cardin he doubted his dad would listen to his ideas, there is little in the way of drama. Towards the end of the film, their 'bonding' is intensified when the son is in danger, but even then little emotion is really shown. As I commented above about the flaws in the story - this only adds to them.

The constant movement means that none of the characters really go through any sort of change or development as you would expect, so even if the acting was perfect this film would still lack substance.

Film Qualities

This starts out like any action film. However, it is not an urban style movie, but is substantially set in the wilderness. The scenery made the film, for me, worthwhile watching. On their journey to safety, father, son, hostage (& a couple that join them) must face a few obstacles. There is an amazing waterfall, a scene with some huge boulders - we are told from the ice-age or something & deep forests amongst other things. The surroundings are fantastic but reminded me that there was potential for this film to be a lot more meaningful than it actually was.

The first guy to be murdered makes a 'hit & run' something to be terrified of. Aside the realistic sounds, his death is quite cringe-worthy. The violence in the film is moderate & sparing but nevertheless effective. You should be convinced early on enough that these men mean business. On the other hand, for those who do not like blood, I did not actually see that much of it. The scenes are also over quite fast, which means you do not have time to look away, but at the same time you do not have time to take it all in.

The car crashes & helicopter crash scene add to excitement in the film, all being nicely designed to prevent this becoming a dull country film. However, even the crashes seem very unrealistic. Cardin's accident is blatantly exaggerated & the helicopter crash really should have caused more damage to its passengers than we get to see. Cardin also gets out of the ambushed car with far too few injuries. At least I can say I did not yawn during this film - the effects did make me think 'waoh' a bit - but they could have been more realistic.

Soundtrack

There is very little music in this film - just some suspense music here & there. In my opinion this film really did need livening up & it is a shame that little effort was put in to enhance the musical side of the film. However, I was impressed generally with the sound effects in the film. I watched the DVD on my laptop with headphones on & during the woodland scenes kept randomly waving my hand by my ear only to realise I did not have a bug buzzing around me - it was the film lol. Sorry to bore you with this silly remark but there is nothing else to say sound-wise

Classification

There is one female bum, several murders, three crashes (actually there might be more, I can't really remember for certain), & odd swearwords on the rare occasion. This film is reasonably rated 15. I do not think there is enough of any of the above for me to say that people might be offended. In fact overall it is actually quite a decent film - even the swearing is quite discreet. Probably the murders were what really put the minimum age up to 15, rather than anything else & it is not that far from the films rated 12 that I have seen.

Overall

This film did not lack in entertainment value. If you don't mind or even like a bit of violence in a film, this one has it, albeit not much. The scenes are breathtakingly beautiful. It is an exciting story, with some twists & plenty of suspense. However, this film completely lacks common sense. The comments made about the storyline above are what I expect will disappoint most viewers for this film. It is not just unrealistic, but actually quite a patronising film. It is not the type of film I would bother watching more than once. I would not recommend buying & I'm not sure you should even bother to rent it. If it comes on TV then you won't be wasting too much of your life to watch it & at least it has some entertainment value. 

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