| The Contract | |
|---|---|
 Film poster |
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| Directed by | Bruce Beresford |
| Produced by | Boaz Davidson Randall Emmett George Furla Andreas Grosch Avi Lerner Danny Lerner Andreas Schmid Les Weldon |
| Written by | Stephen Katz John Darrouzet |
| Starring | Morgan Freeman John Cusack Jamie Anderson |
| Music by | Normand Corbeil |
| Cinematography | Dante Spinotti |
| Editing by | Mark Warner |
| Distributed by | First Look International |
| Release date(s) |  October 9, 2006 (Haifa Film Festival) May 9, 2007 (DVD premiere) June 9, 2007 (Cognac Film Festival) July 9, 2007 (DVD premiere) July 24, 2007 (DVD premiere) |
| Running time | 97 min |
| Country | U.S. Germany |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $25,000,000 |
| Gross revenue | $1,578,317 |
| All Movie Guide profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
The Contract is a 2006 film directed by Bruce Beresford and written by late television scribe Stephen Katz. A cat-and-mouse thriller, The Contract stars Oscar-winner Morgan Freeman as assassin Frank Carden and John Cusack as mild-mannered teacher Ray Keene. Released directly to video in the United States and most of Europe, The Contract received little critical notice, despite its high-profile cast.
Contents |
Plot
Morgan Freeman is Frank Carden, a professional assassin who gets caught because he gets into a car wreck (the nurse in the emergency room spots his gun and they call the police). John Cusack is Ray Keene, a high-school gym teacher, ex-cop, and well-intentioned but not very able dad to Chris (Jamie Anderson), a teen who's gone downhill behaviorwise since the death of his mother from cancer. Ray belatedly realizes the need to bond with his son when the latter gets caught smoking pot, and therefore takes him hiking in the wilderness. Carden is being driven through that same wilderness by a group of U.S. Marshalls, but his men stage a rescue attempt and most of the marshalls end up dead; the last remaining one lives long enough for their car to go off the road, down a steep embankment, and into the river, from which Keene pulls him and Carden just in time for him to ask Keene to take the prisoner to the authorities and die of his injuries. Ray and Chris have to get Carden out of the wilderness and handed over to the authorities before his men, highly-skilled ex-military thugs, can track them down, rescue Carden and kill the Keenes.
Production
The film was shot almost exclusively in Bulgaria and the DSK Bank central headquarters (see photo) served as one of the main sets.
Trivia
John Cusack had previously played an assassin for hire in the film Grosse Pointe Blank.
Cast
- Jamie Anderson as Chris Keene
- John Cusack as Ray Keene
- Megan Dodds as Sandra
- Morgan Freeman as Frank Carden
- Jonathan Hyde as Turner
- Corey Johnson as Davis
- Alice Krige as Miles
- Ian Shaw as Michaels
