The Contract (2006 film)

Frank Carden is a professional assassin who has been hired to kill a reclusive billionaire named Lydell Hammond Sr., a vocal opponent of stem cell research. Carden's plan goes awry when he gets injured in a car accident and ends up in the hospital. When the hospital staff see his gun, they call the police. They are able to peel away his false identity and federal marshals are called in to pick him up. Meanwhile, widower Ray Keene, an awkward high school gym teacher, ex-cop and well-intentioned but not very able dad to Chris, belatedly realizes the need to bond with his son when the latter gets caught smoking marijuana and takes him hiking in the wilderness. Carden is being driven through that same wilderness by the marshals but his men stage a rescue attempt. The car is crashed and most of the marshals end up dead. The surviving marshal asks Keene to take the prisoner to the authorities and then dies of his injuries. Ray and Chris have to get Carden out of the wilderness and hand him over to the authorities. Carden's men, highly skilled ex-military thugs, track them down to rescue Carden and kill the Keenes. The pursuit brings a couple, Sandra and Lochlan into the crossfire, with Lochlan being killed by Carden's men. In a tense standoff in a cabin in the woods, Carden's friends turn up and Keene agrees to let Carden go. Just at that moment, one of Carden's thugs bursts in and punches Chris, causing Keene to panic and kill him, while Sandra shoots the other as he enters firing. Carden escapes, taking Chris as a hostage, while the local police rescue Sandra and Keane. Miles, Carden's mission handler, tells Davis, Carden's recent recruit, to kill Carden and Chris and to make it look like Carden did it. She also tells him to kill Keene in case Carden told him anything about his job. Feeling defeated and resting at home, a televised news report echoes an earlier conversation about Carden's job description with the key phrase "exterminating obstacles to progress" which makes Keene aware of Carden's intended target. Keene heads to the funeral of Hammond Jr., to intercept Carden, inadvertently saving Carden from Davis. Carden gets the upper hand on Davis, killing him with his own sniper rifle. However, the battle forces Carden to miss his own window of opportunity to assassinate Hammond Sr. Carden relents in giving Keene a set of keys to a hotel room where Carden locked up Chris, letting father and son reunite while he disappears. In Washington, D.C., Carden intercepts Miles, aware of her role in hiring Davis to kill him. Carden threatens to "come after her" if any harm were to come to the Keene family. Two weeks after the incident, Keene enters a relationship with Sandra and holds a family barbecue, expressing disbelief in hearing a radio news report about Hammond Sr., dying in a "boating accident", realizing that Carden finished his contract killing.

• Morgan Freeman as Frank Carden
• John Cusack as Ray Keene
• Jamie Anderson as Chris Keene
• Alice Krige as Miles
• Megan Dodds as Sandra
• Corey Johnson as Davis
• Jonathan Hyde as Turner
• Bill Smitrovich as Chief Ed Wainwright
• Ned Bellamy as Deputy Evans
• Anthony Warren as Royko
• Thomas Lockyer as Johnson
• Ian Shaw as Michaels
• Jonas Talkington as Paramedic
• Ryan Spike Dauner as Helicopter Pilot #1
• Mike Diamente as Agent Reyes
• Atanas Srebrev as Agent Rodriguez
• Maynard Eziashi{{cite news|last=Onikoyi|first=Ayo|title=Nollywood is doing fabulously well, says Nigerian Hollywood star|date=22 January 2012|newspaper=Vanguard|url=http://www.vanguardngr.com/2012/01/nollywood-is-doing-fabulously-well-says-nigerian-hollywood-star/|accessdate=24 February 2015}} as Agent Chuck Robbins

Director Bruce Beresford talks extensively about the production of the movie in his memoir Josh Hartnett Definitely Wants To do This... True Stories From A Life In The Screen Trade.{{cite book |last1=Beresford |first1=Bruce |author-link=Bruce Beresford |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IwZlAAAAMAAJ&q=%22the+contract%22 |title=Josh Hartnett Definitely Wants To Do This... True Stories From A Life in the Screen Trade |date=January 8, 2007 |publisher=HarperCollins Publishers Australia |isbn=9780732284398}}

The film was shot almost exclusively in Bulgaria and the DSK Bank central headquarters served as one of the main sets.

The scenes on the large rock were filmed at the Zlatnite Mostove on the Vitosha Mountain by Sofia, the capital city of Bulgaria.

The film received negative reviews. It has a 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes from 6 critics who reviewed it.{{cite web|title=The Contract|accessdate=23 June 2015|website=Rotten Tomatoes|url=http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1177488-contract/?search=The%20Contrac}} Leonard Maltin awarded the film two stars.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iPMxDwAAQBAJ&q=the+contract+leonard+maltin+morgan+freeman&pg=PA283|last=Maltin|first=Leonard|title=Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide: The Modern Era, Previously Published as Leonard Maltin's 2015 Movie Guide|year=2017|publisher=Penguin|isbn=9780525536314}}page 283

{{Reflist}}

• {{IMDb title|0445946|The Contract}}
• {{mojo title|id=contract}}
• [http://www.watchfreemoviesonline.eu/thriller/the-contract.html The Contract Review]

{{Bruce Beresford}}

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Contract, The}}

Category:2006 films

Category:Nu Image films

Category:2006 crime thriller films

Category:Films directed by Bruce Beresford

Category:Films produced by Randall Emmett

Category:Films shot in Bulgaria

Category:Films scored by Normand Corbeil

Category:MoviePass Films films

Category:Revelations Entertainment films

Category:2000s English-language films

Category:English-language crime thriller films