By: Andrew Wing

The Contractor is a 2022 American action thriller film directed by Tarik Saleh (also directed an episode of the HBO series Westworld) in his English-language film debut. The film stars Chris Pine (Star Trek reboot film series, Wonder Woman), Ben Foster (Lone Survivor, Leave No Trace), Gillian Jacobs (Community, Love), Eddie Marsan (Sherlock Holmes, The World’s End), J. D. Pardo (Mayans M.C., F9), Florian Munteanu (Creed 2, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings), and Kiefer Sutherland (The Lost Boys, 24).

The film follows James Harper (Pine), who after being involuntarily discharged from the Marines joins a paramilitary organization with his friend Mike (Foster) that is run by fellow veteran Rusty Jennings (Sutherland) in order to support his family in the only way he knows how.

Filming began in Europe including Fort Bragg in October 2019 and wrapped up by the end of 2019. The Contractor was released in theaters and on-demand in the United States on April 1, 2022, by Paramount Pictures and STXfilms. The film has so far grossed $1.3 million worldwide.

THE GOOD

I won’t keep you guessing, there was one reason I just knew I had to see this one once I saw the trailer for it, and that one reason was the fact that Chris Pine and Ben Foster were going to be in it together. If you haven’t been living under a rock for the past decade, then you’d know that the two of them co-starred in hands down one of the best films of the 21st century, Hell or High Water. The neo-Western crime film directed by David Mackenzie and written by Taylor Sheridan was so good that it earned a Best Picture nomination, and more importantly, it earned a spot on my all-time favorite films. But seriously though, those two’s chemistry in that film was unbelievable, so I just had to check this new one out to see if they could catch lightning in a bottle for a second time. So without wasting any more time, let’s find out if they did!

Well, you guessed it, they did! I will get into some of the film’s flaws later in the review, but Pine and Foster’s performances will not be included. First with Pine as he was the star of the show, he was awesome as always. I loved him in this as he played the ex-Marine who will do whatever it takes to provide for his family. Pine just thrives in the action thriller genre. I’ll never get tired of him beating the s**t out of somebody or firing some automatic rifles, and I’ll be able to get more of him doing that soon most likely in the upcoming Amazon Prime original film All the Old Knives (see our full preview here) that Ted or I will be reviewing! As for Ben Foster, he just rocked in this. I have never seen him give a bad performance and I honestly don’t know if he is capable of doing so after watching this. I won’t lie, I would’ve liked more screen time from him as we got in Hell or High Water, but this was Pine’s show at the end of the day. Nonetheless, he played this role perfectly as he is always capable of being both extremely funny with his snarky comments and also very dramatic when the going gets tough. I can’t wait to watch him in The Survivor coming to HBO Max later this month and I strongly believe he will win an Oscar in the next five years!

Yes, the performances were the best part of the film, but there were other things about The Contractor that were very good. One of those things was the English-language film debut by director Tarik Saleh. This was the first I have seen from Saleh and he did not disappoint. Sure, it could have been better in spots but his decisions for the most part were solid. From how long he would hold the camera on the character’s face in the more dramatic scenes to how he orchestrated the combat scenes, I am just looking forward to what he does next. I also want to give some credit to J.P. Davis for writing the screenplay here even though I will touch on some things I didn’t agree with. At the end of the day, the script was full of good dialogue and I could tell that Davis had a ton of knowledge on the subject matter as he pushed an important message throughout the film that needs to be dealt with when it comes to veterans returning home from service.

Some other things I liked about The Contractor that are worth mentioning include both some of the supporting performances and the action sequences. First with the supporting performances. I mean I have to start with Kiefer Sutherland. The man is a pretty big deal in the business and I have always been a big fan of his and he did not disappoint here. Now I still can’t fathom why I like him so much since he is responsible for so many nightmares in my youth due to watching The Lost Boys at way too young of an age, but he is just so easy to like on the big screen. I also really liked seeing Razor Fist himself (Florian Munteanu) from Shang-Chi (see our full review here) in this even though it was a very small role. The dude is just a beast, and he played a big part in why I loved the action sequences so much here. There is nothing worse than watching a movie that's got these characters that are ex-Marines but they don’t even look like they have touched a weapon before, and thankfully that wasn’t the case here. I don’t know who the credit belongs to for that, but I was very pleased with what we got for the final product.

THE BAD

While there definitely was more good than bad when it comes to The Contractor, the film still had a couple of big flaws. I said I would touch on J.P. Davis’s screenplay again, and here it is. For the first half of the film, I felt like the movie’s central theme was focused on exposing the real problem that these veterans face when they come back home after serving whether it is being discharged for the smallest thing that leaves them left with none of the necessities you need to survive in today’s economy or just dealing with the horrors that come with PTSD. But following the first third of the film, it totally disregards everything it was going for and just turns into a standard-issue action thriller film. I don’t know, maybe it isn’t fully Davis’s fault and maybe some of the blame belongs to the director because well, he is the director, but I just wish they picked a lane and stayed in it rather than swerving back and forth between both because it hurt the film as a whole.

Also, I am not going to lie, but the film is kind of a bore at times. And with a film like this that is only 103 minutes long and an action thriller, that is not a good thing. Don’t get me wrong, the beginning is good and the action sequences are great, but the time in between those parts dragged quite a bit. And lastly, the very end of the film was not what I was expecting at all. I don’t want to spoil anything, but I wouldn’t have minded an extra five minutes or so because I think it would have given us a better ending than the one we got.

THE VERDICT

Even though the film gets stuck between either being a message movie or a full-on action thriller, The Contractor makes the most of its talented cast. Chris Pine and Ben Foster reunite in their first feature film since the critically acclaimed Hell or High Water, and it does not disappoint. I was also impressed by the English-language film debut from director Tarik Saleh and if you got some free time, you should go check it out in theaters or on-demand.