The Contractor - Doppeltes Spiel

It was clearly meant for UK market, incorporating two popular British actors that ended up working on Game of Thrones together just 4 years later. But ill tell you who else loves this stuff.... Latinos. My Latina wife barely speaks English and loves tf outta these types of story and action.

A non-stop thriller with intrigue , twists , turns and routine interpretation make up for the charming presence of the little girl Eliza Bennett and her sensitive relation with Wesley Snipes. Here Wesley Snipes performs an ex-C. I. A. Operative , Agent James Dial, whose career took a turn south with one botched mission . He is asked to take out terrorist Ali Mahmud Jahar (Nikolai Sotirov), but things go wrong . On the run and bleeding profusely, James makes his way to the safe house,mand along the way , he meets curious twelve-year-old neighbor Emily Day (Eliza Bennett) . Dial to realize he's been set up by his former employer , Jeremy Collins (Ralph Brown). Snipes' role manages to keep low profile long enough to clear their name . With the official authorities (Charles Dance , Lena Headey, playing father and daughter , the same as Game of Thrones) and his betrayer chasing him, and in spite of being a black man travelling alone in England , he must fight to survive against the nasty undercover agents and save his little friend . The world's greatest marksman is now a marked man...!

The movie displays suspense , thriller , unstopped action , high body-count and lots of violence when the killings happen . It's an average actioner movie with some entertaining moments but also with no sense scenes . The thrilling plot is plain and simple , dealing with a trained operative , subject to an intense manhunt who makes no real attempt to disguise himself ; however, the picture is made up for the agreeable presence of the sympathetic little girl Eliza Bennett to be followed an interesting TV/cinematic career . Both , Wesley Snipes and Eliza Bennett will depelop an enjoyable friendship , including a feeling finale. Wesley is nice as action hero , his early performances were as a serious actor in dramas , later turning as tough action man in films with big budget like¨Money train¨,¨Murder at 1600¨, ¨US Marshall¨ and ¨Blade trilogy¨, among others . Nowadays , he only plays movies in middling and low budget , such as ¨Unstoppable¨,¨7 seconds¨, ¨Chaos¨,¨The marksman¨, ¨The Hunter¨, ¨Armed Response¨ , ¨Gallow walkers¨, and ¨Cut Throat City¨. The movie benefits itself from a veteran Brit cast , such as : Lena Headey, Ralph Brown , Charles Dance , Gemma Jones and John Standing .

The motion picture shot in London was professionally directed by the German Josef Rusnak , though with no originality, because we had seen these kinds of stories before and much better. Josef began working as a director in his native country with enough success up to U. S. co-productions filmed in English . Rusnak has developed his career mainly in the genres of suspense and terror as 'It's alive' , but also has his touches of science fiction as 'Level 13' at his best , drama as 'Valerie' , 'Quiet days in Hollywood' , 'Beyond' and action with two Wesley Snipes vehicles as 'The contractor' and 'Art of war 2' . Rating : 5 .5/10. Average but acceptable and passable . Well worth watching . The flick will appeal to Wesley Snipes and Eliza Bennett fans.

Wesley Snipes is an ex-killer for the CIA, living contentedly on a ranch. He's asked to come back to kill a bad, bad man.... and realizes it's a set-up to get him killed. He also needs to take care of 15-year-old Eliza Bennett because the writers must have seen THE PROFESSIONAL and said "I can do that!"

No they can't. It's a decently acted movie -- it's got Charles Dance and Lena Headley -- but it's so derivative that you'll watch it and wonder as it plods self-importantly through its plot points, why they stole this particular twist from that movie, instead of a different plot twist from another. Or any of ten others.

It went straight to video. Now it's on the higher-numbered cable channels.

Having just seen Hit-man, another film of the type "good hit-man fights bad hit men", but incredibly stupid, The Contractor seemed to me of incredibly unexpected good nature. The main character is human, fallible, vulnerable. He does his job as well as possible given the circumstances, he tries to save his skin as well as possible and when a stern "Moscow rules: if the mission fails you're already dead" assignment comes his way he feels no confusion when deciding he should stay very much alive, no matter the mission.

Of course, in all this gem of a script idea there is also bad screen play, occasional bad acting and things that make no sense. It's like a good machine without oil, everything is well made but not really working. The action scenes are shaky and amateurish for a Snipes movie, but then again, the point was not the action or the technical prowess of the hit men, but the fact that they are human beings.

At first I thought it was going to be another Nikita/Leon ripoff, but the girl story arch was sensible and reasonably original. The ending was a little bit forced, too.

Bottom line: in the abysmal hell of bad written hit-man action movies, this obscure film is a real gem in the mud and a reminder that the budget is not really important, nor the genre of the film, but the very real effort of actually trying to make a movie, not just money.

I don't really know what I was expecting when I went into this. I usually don't waste my time with direct-to-video garbage, but I was sick and very bored. I'd just watched Snipes' earlier vehicle Unstoppable (2004) which I thought was actually pretty decent, and in no way deserving of all the hate that's been heaped upon it. After seeing the very poor rating of that film, and liking it, I saw this film's lukewarm rating and thought it must be at least ok. I was wrong, and I want my time back.

Let me just say that I usually go into films with expectations. I learn about most movies through this or some other website, so I've usually read about a movie before seeing it, and I pick the ones I want to see. That said, I go into the ones I've picked really wanting to like them, so when they're not good, I'm disappointed, even to the point of being annoyed. Maybe i should change my approach, but this film just didn't meet my expectations.

The plot is wholly generic. A legendary, but retired, government assassin is called in for one last mission, which is to take out a ruthless dictator and terrorist. Once he completes the job, he attempts to leave the country, but is framed for another murder before he can. On the run, he must rely on his skills to survive. Sounds like "Bourne meets any Steven Seagal movie". It's very unoriginal, and it is just a rehashing of every other action movie you've ever seen.

The characters are all bland. I like Wesley Snipes, a lot actually, and I'd even go as far as to call myself a fan. He was the only reason I gave this film a second glance, and the only reason I pressed play. He was alright, even though he didn't have tons of dialogue. He's not as charismatic as he was in the roles of his prime, but he's nowhere near Seagal territory when it comes to wooden acting. He is onscreen a lot, but there's also a lot of time where he's not onscreen. When he is though, he's sitting and/or staring, and occasionally speaking. The other characters are all stock characters recycled from other films. Bleh.

Director Josef Rusnak, obviously an amateur, didn't do horribly. Most of the movie was at least watchable, but he went with shaky, frenetic camera work reminiscent of Tony Scott. Scott's newer, frenetic style, is most notable in Mann unter Feuer (2004), but at least there the style fit the mood. Here, Rusnak's obvious imitation is unnecessary, and just looks clumsy.

Now, I can forgive a generic plot and mediocre characters in this kind of film. It is a brainless B action movie after all, right? I've come for action, and a long as I get at least a fair amount of decent action scenes then I'll be good. Well this so-called "action movie" can't even deliver that. The trailer, which seemed to promise a good amount of action, gravely misled me. There are barely any action scenes, basically like, three or four small ones, in the movie, all of which are incredibly brief (the last one was ok), and poorly edited. Worst of all, Wesley Snipes has one fight scene. ONE FIGHT SCENE. We've come to see Wesley fight and don't get that at all. It seems like Snipes is starting to go the Seagal route of doing fewer and fewer action scenes in his movies, which is sad. Another scene with potential is stupidly obscured by strobe lighting, for no reason. Just why. Several more action scenes, and this would've been better.

The movie asked me to care about its story and characters, and attempted to privilege the story over the action. It's a risky move, one I can respect, but the problem is that it wasn't a great story and the characters weren't great. When there wasn't any action, I was left with the story, which was unsatisfying. The script could've used more action to keep the slow story moving, and at least make it more interesting. Maybe I should re-evaluate it, but my time is too valuable too me.

I wanted so badly to like the movie, but I have to be honest with myself. If you're a Snipes fan, then I guess you could watch it just to say you did. Otherwise, avoid it. It really is a waste of time.