Director: Tarik Saleh
Notable Cast: Chris Pine, Ben Foster, Gillian Jacobs,
Kiefer Sutherland, Eddie Marsan, Florian Munteanu
As the industry continues to shift in recent years, it’s
hard not to lament the loss of certain mid-tier genres in the wake of a
spectacle-driven box office. The death of the mid-budget adult-targeted film is
well recognized throughout film criticism and industry analysis where many
great writers have spoken about it at length so iterating the eulogy here is
not the best use of my word usage. With the rise of streaming, however, there
seems to be a grasp towards grabbing those genres and reclaiming them for a
modern era.
The Contractor, exemplifies this.
Although this latest old-school espionage thriller is
receiving a small theatrical run this week, its sale to both Showtime and
Paramount+ at the same time is indicative of this move. The Contractor
is not the spectacle-driven spy flick that Mission: Impossible or James
Bond fans might expect, but it is a solid sleeper hit that manages a balance
between modern political themes and old-school espionage tension and thrills.
It’s not wholly the most thrilling watch, thanks to a very drama-heavy first
half, but its dedication to creating realistic characters and then throwing
them into the military action shouldn’t be written off as boring either. The
Contractor is simply more throw-back tone than anything. It’s utterly
refreshing at times.
Featuring one of Chris Pine’s most subdued and heartbreaking
performances, the characters within the world of The Contractor are all
layered with the weight of contemporary issues and debates. The film, written
by J.P. Davis, has a lot of say about the state of veterans that are forgotten
in the system, or in the case of James Harper - played by Pine, how they are
unceremoniously ejected out by the pressure of maintaining a career in the
military. Its themes are carried throughout and it strikes an impact when the
film wants to hit on them later on in the film.
The film adds a humanistic face to characters caught in the
gray areas of this machine, how Harper and his family are deserted due to his
own fears of failing or aging out of the only life he’s known, and it grounds
the film in a rather bleak first act. Although the family dynamic ultimately
takes a backseat to Harper’s own internal turmoil to set the plot in motion, The
Contractor is adding in an artistic and dramatically cinematic heft to a
film that could have ultimately succumbed to focusing on the action rather than
the characters. The writing and tonal heaviness doesn’t always execute the
ideas in full, but the ideas are there.
When Harper meets up with an old friend, a welcome secondary
performance from the always impressive Ben Foster, The Contractor shifts
gears towards a more traditional military-style thriller. As it turns out, there
is a place to go to earn cash for veterans within the private military complex.
When Kiefer Sutherland pops up as the head of this outfit, seemingly ready to
give Harper the cash he’s always dreamed about, an audience is sure to
understand where the latter half of The Contractor is heading. It’s not
going to be a happy place, I assure you. Not with the gravely voiced
Sutherland barking orders anyway.
The grounded and realistic military action works in symmetry
with the slow-burning narrative of its first half. The classic 1970s spy thriller
mentality embraces the character study, ala The Day of the Jackal, but
it's not negating the lessons of modern spy films either, particularly in the
intense bouts of shockingly effective action. As our hero joins the private
military outfit and heads to Europe to execute a questionable mission, the
tropes are all set up for what this film has to offer.
Strong action sequences may not be plentiful in The
Contractor, but they are impressively executed through realistic firefights
on the ground and a second act cat-and-mouse chase where Harper goes
underground while trying to make it home through a plethora of untrustworthy
circumstances. The tension finally starts to mount in this second act survival
game, punctuated by a surprise small role from Eddie Marsan, and it represents
the best material The Contractor has to offer. When the final act rolls
around, pitting Harper’s sights back towards home and on a quest for vengeance
(and possible redemption), it’s easy to see why STX greenlit the film for
production. The build from opening to closing is a steady climb, but a
satisfyingly brutal one even if the plotting of its mission is as muddied for
the audience as it is for Harper.
Although initial word of mouth about The Contractor
is that the film is far too boring, for me, it was a pleasant surprise that
showcases the depths of Pine’s acting prowess and manages to offset the slow
burn of its old-school atmosphere with a bit of modern military action. The
leaps from its dramatic first act to its tension stacked and chase focused
second act before its siege centered third act don’t necessarily move in the
smoothest ways and its realistic approach to style can leave the film feeling
too heavy for more general action audiences.
Still, there is an old-school mentality and intriguing depth
to The Contractor that sticks with me that I find refreshing. With Pine
delivering another throwback thriller in the coming weeks over on Amazon, it’s
fascinating how his career has shifted gears. The Contractor might be a
bit too slow or meticulously paced for some, but it is also a fantastic
counterbalance to the spectacle-driven material that dominates the genre
now.
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