The Sunday Mail
Film Review
Tinashe Kusema
LET me start by saying “The Contractor” starring Chris Pine is not a bad movie per se.
It ticks most of the boxes that most people are concerned about when they want to watch a movie.
Also, it has a great cast, especially from its lead, and an easy-to-follow plot.
However, a combination of lazy writing, lack of stakes and character development conspire to ruin the total success of the movie.
The action-thriller follows James Harper (Pine), a decorated serviceman who gets involuntarily discharged from the Army Special Forces due to his use of narcotics to treat a knee injury.
Harper, out of desperation, decides to join a group of mercenaries as a way to make ends meet.
The leader of the group Rusty Jennings (Kiefer Sutherland) connects with Harper because of their shared military background and struggle after service.
Jennings promises Harper a home and a new sense of purpose, claiming that the group works for a special branch of the government.
He immediately dangles a huge cheque in his face and sends him on his first mission.
The task revolves around surveilling a Middle East scientist by the name of Salim (Fares Fares) and retrieving whatever bio-weapon he is making for ISIS.
However, things go south during the mission and the deeper Harper digs, the more it becomes apparent that he is on the wrong side.
Trapped in Berlin, Harper has to find his own way home.
He has to shoot his way through a group of trained mercenaries sent to kill him and stop Jennings on his way back to his wife and kid Brianne (Gillian Jacobs) and Jack Harper (sander Thomas).
It is a miracle that Thunder Road Films and 30West, the studio behind the film, managed to acquire the services of stars like Pine, Sutherland and Jacobs, considering they were working with a budget of about US$50 million.
But this probably explains the stunted action scenes which were too few and far in-between.
Certain concessions and budget cuts obviously had to be made.
That said, one of the ways the studio and, by extension, the writers could have hidden these limitations was to load the film with solid dialogue and sub-plots.
I am willing to forgive the lack of action, but the dialogue was just too rudimentary and shallow.
Likewise, the sub-plots and characters lack development. For instance, writer J.P Davis tried a little too hard to give a commentary on the whole America neglects its soldiers after service.
This was the common ground between Harper, Jennings and his band of mercenaries.
However, the problem with this subplot is that it has been done one too many times.
One can even trace it back to Sylvester Stallone’s “Rambo: First Blood” (1982) and many other movies that came after.
Most of them have done a better job.
There is also the Harper and his daddy issues which becomes the huge elephant in the room for the entire movie.
Harper’s father was let go by the army and he decided to abandon his family afterward.
Accordingly, the film’s protagonist is haunted by this and his fears, more or less, form the basis of his decision-making.
Davis fails to give this sub-plot time to breathe as it is just alluded to in frequent flashbacks, which has little bearing on the movie as a whole.
He commits the same offence with the main plot as Sutherland’s Jennings has very little dialogue and presence in the actual movie.
The guy shows up at the beginning and at the end of the movie, spending most of the movie as a background character.
In his absence, Pine is left to do most of the heavy lifting and to his credit does so with aplomb.
The 41-year-old’s performance is so good that it saves the movie from being a total disaster.
