Tags:
Journalism of Courage
Cast: Morgan Freeman, John Cusack, Jamie Anderson
DIRECTOR: Bruce Beresford
Unlike last week8217;s The Bourne Ultimatum, The Contract8217;s professional hitman Frank Cardin Freeman doesn8217;t survive almost anything, including falls from buildings and horrific car crashes. The film is about the quieter moments when two completely different and yet somewhat alike men 8212; Cardin, a disillusioned ex-military intelligence officer fighting now for money and not glory, and Ray Keene Cusack, a former policeman trying to ensure his son doesn8217;t go astray 8212; meet.
For most of the film, Cardin, Keene and his son Chris Anderson trudge through the scenic Cedar Pine forest with Cardin8217;s killer friends on their heels and police trying to catch up. Beresford is vague on what Keene and Chris hope to achieve by thus marching on but it does give them enough time on screen for us to understand and like the three.
All credit for that to Freeman. In one of his few bad roles, he still commands as much respect and attention as he did when he sprang up before Jim Carrey in Bruce Almighty and declared: 8220;I8217;m God.8221;
The point where Cardin8217;s path crosses with the Keenes in the forest is also nicely built up, down to the crashed car in which Cardin was being transported by the police bobbing on the river. The real treat, however, is the expression on Cardin8217;s face when Keene shoots away a helicopter seconds before he is to ride it to freedom.
However, if Beresford gets the little details right, he doesn8217;t know what to do with the overall plot. An obnoxious FBI officer is woven in, with 8220;conspiracy8221; written all over her pinched forehead, just to play on the tiresome 8220;Big Bad Washington vs the Unassuming Local Police8221; angle.
There is a de rigeur aside on no one knowing who they are fighting for any more, and that it was best in these times not to have any agenda.
But the biggest surprise is that at the centre of a film whose biggest strength perhaps is that it is not out to prove anything is a little outlandish idea: a conspiracy to crush opposition to stem cell research.
