The Contract Review

I hadn't heard anything about the film The Contract, despite knowing that it was made in 2006/2007 and stars Morgan Freeman. I like Morgan Freeman and usually like his films. The Contract also stars John Cusack, whom I also enjoy in films. I decided to rent the film from Netflix and it is an okay action thriller -- not great, but okay.

The Contract starts out showing Cusack as a school baseball coach, then switches to a scene with his young teen son, who has just been caught smoking pot. In a believable scene, Cusack attempts to discuss drug use with his son, who quickly rejects any discussion with a reference to the death of his mother from cancer two years before. Cusack decides to take his son on a camping trip in the Washington State wilderness, in an attempt to find some common ground and do a little father-son bonding.

At the same time, hired-killer Morgan Freeman briefs his crew of military-trained thugs about an upcoming hit. The next thing you know, Freeman is doing some brutal things but maintaining his fatherly cool... it's quite unsettling. Freeman's character is in a car accident and he ends up in a hospital, where the cops quickly find out who he is. Freeman is turned over to federal marshalls and his crew stages a rescue in the same mountains in which Cusack and son are bonding. Freeman escapes and falls into the hands of Cusack and son, starting a game of cat-and-mouse in the wilderness.

The setup for The Contract is pretty good, and Morgan Freeman and John Cusack are definitely watchable. The young actor playing the son is also good as the rebellious teenager. The scenery in the mountains (actually shot in Bulgaria of all places!) is beautiful, and there is a pretty spectacular helicopter crash. Most of the elements of a good thriller are there and The Contract was watchable.

On the downside, something about the film just seemed off. It was a combination of the pacing, stereotyped characters, graphic violence and odd gaps in the scriptwriter's knowledge that kicked The Contract down a notch for me. One example is at the end, where a radio station identifying itself as WKGB makes an announcement. In Washington State? No radio station west of the Mississippi has call letters that begin with the letter "W" and it's hard to understand that the filmmakers missed something so obvious. There are several little slip ups like that. There's also the standard government conspiricy and military-trained thugs, the usual building blocks of ordinary thrillers. Morgan Freeman and John Cusack can carry some of that, but only so far. It is also more violent than it needs to be -- its R-rating is based on some heavy violence. (I read a couple reviews that refer to female nudity in the film but I must have blinked during that scene, as I didn't see it. Edit: Ahh, I remember it now. There was a long shot of a naked woman bathing in a river, mostly from the back. It scarcely made an impression.)

The Contract was an okay thriller for rainy day viewing. If you try not to think about the holes in the story and just enjoy the action, it should be entertaining enough.