(Sorry for the lack of video on this one guys… problems with the camera) I’m a huge John Cusack fan. To this day I’ve never seen him give a bad performance. You’d also be hard pressed to find a lot of people who don’t at least appreciate Morgan Freeman. Put the two of them together in a movie and you’ve got a winner right? RIGHT? Well… not necessarily. What you do end up with is “The Contract”
“The Contract” follows Morgan’s charcter, an elite hitman, and his loyal team of professional killers who have just undertaken a job to eliminate someone. In the process, Freeman is captured by the police, and his loyal team are out to free him. John Cusack is a local high school teacher, who while out on a camping trip with his teenage son, finds himself with Freeman as his prisoner and is determined to get him back to the police before Freeman’s team catch up with them.
THE GOOD
Morgan Freeman, as always, is so damn likable. Even as a bad guy. He sweats more CHARM out of his ass crack than most of us can produce on our prom dates. He’s so slick, persuasive, charming and likable that you’re forced to believe him… no matter what his says. I mean, the man could look you in the eye and say “Pirates of the Caribbean 3 is a watchable film” and you’d actually believe him! At the same time, in the film when he wants to come across as threatening or “scary”, he really really does. There are couple of instances where they remind you what he does for a living… he kills people.
The concept of the film unfolds as you move through the film, so I can’t give much of it away. It suffices to say that the rules of the game change a little more than mid-way through the movie. The shift adds an extra much needed layer of depth to the story that until that point felt really quite shallow and weak. By the time you are fully aware of what is really going on, the concept of the film hits you as being a pretty good one
It’s not often that I’ll point out on of the smaller supporting roles as one of the highlights of a film, but Alice Krige (the Borg Queen from Star Trek) as the FBI Agent in charge was excellent. She kept you guessing about her the whole time and you’re never quite sure what to make of her. She’s also one of those rare female characters where the script actually seems to be able to portray them as strong… without being a bitch. Many screenwriters usually fail to get this right. I ended up enjoying her character and her complexity (for such a small part) a lot.
THE BAD
I resent this movie for this point alone… I have to criticize a John Cusack performance for the first time in my life. DAMN YOU “THE CONTRACT”!!!! It really felt like Cusack was just walking through this movie… almost like he knew deep down this one was just destined for the DVD shelves without any wide release… so why bother. That really came across to me. Scenes of anger looked more like mildly annoyed. Scenes of fear looked like moderate concern. I guess over all he just came across as far too casual the whole time… even when his son is in danger. Granted… the script didn’t give him much to work with… which leads us to….
Totally unbelievable dialog. Notice I didn’t say “bad” dialog. The script isn’t chalked full of corny or cheesy lines. But the conversations (especially between Cusack, his son, and Freeman) are just nonesense. At least 7 or 8 times through the movie I said to myself “There is NO WAY they’d be talking to him like that right now”. Such painfully misplaced conversations really pulled me out of the film over and over and over again.
MASSIVE MASSIVE plot holes that undermine the whole basis of the film. I’m sorry (THIS IS A MINOR SPOILER THAT HAPPENS VERY EARLY IN THE FILM… CONTINUE READING AT OWN RISK) but I never, at any time in this movie believed for one instance that Cusack would actually put his son in danger the way he does through the whole film. When Morgan Freeman tells him “Look, my professional killer friends are coming to free me… you have your son with you… just let me go”, there is NO WAY any father would keep holding him prisoner. The movie TRIES to offer theories why he wouldn’t let Freeman go, but they’re flimsy, inadequate attempts to say the least.
OVERALL
A valiant attempt by Morgan Freeman and a decent concept are swallowed up by bad execution, bad dialog and unbelievable plot devices used to flesh out the concept. John Cusack gives the first poor performance I’ve ever seen him give (don’t worry John… everyone has a bad day at the office) but it’s had to blame him when no actor on the planet could make his character (and what he says and does) believable. Freeman alone almost makes this movie worth it… but not quite. I give “The Contract” a 5/10.
Here’s the trailer for THE CONTRACT
