BEFORE: I've been playing catch-up with De Niro's career so far this year, and of course before that I was finally catching up with the film I backed on Kickstarter way back in 2012. But now it's time to get to some more current fare, "The Contractor" was released in 2022, and it's already on cable, and the same goes for tomorrow's film, which also came out last year, but is already on Netflix. I think the timeline for getting films to home TVs has been drastically accelerated, so there's a chance for me to watch a few things in January that MIGHT get nominated for something during awards season. "Glass Onion", for example, which spent a week in theaters before landing on Netflix and maybe four other current films this month, like "Wendell & Wild" and "Blonde". I haven't had the time to really make a list of the 2022 movies that I want to see, or might get nominated, and I for sure haven't had a chance to sign on to see what's in the Academy's streaming room - but I bet there's some good stuff there.
Ben Foster carries over from "Leave No Trace". Working another screening of "Women Talking" tonight at the theater, but so few people showed up that the theater staff outnumbered the viewers. It happens - I guess everyone who wanted to see the film showed up on Tuesday?
THE PLOT: A discharged U.S. Special Forces sergeant, James Harper, risks everything for his family when he joins a private contracting organization.
AFTER: An army sergeant who got a knee injury in Iraq gets a discharge because he used steroids to recover - damn, isn't that just like the government? I mean, steroids are illegal for baseball players and Olympians, but when did we start imposing similar rules on our soldiers? Come on, they're not technically ILLEGAL, just banned from professional sports, right? And even then, Lance Armstrong got away with using them for YEARS, and so did several prominent baseball players. I just looked this up, in New York and in the armed forces as well, steroid use is illegal unless prescribed by a physician - which means they ARE legal if they ARE prescribed by a physician. So Sgt. Harper's crime isn't so much USING the steroids, it's that he didn't check with a doctor first. Is that really enough grounds for a discharge? And it's an honorable discharge, so what's the big deal?
The big deal is that he loses his benefits and pension - which is probably one big reason why people enlist in the first place. How will he provide for his family without those government checks? It's not like there are NON-military jobs out there... But I guess if all you are is a hammer, then everything looks like a nail. So Harper looks up his old army buddy and best friend Mike to see if he can join him running secret operations for a private military company, working for the Department of Defense. He gets accepted, gets paid in advance, and then the whole operation goes very smoothly, there are no casualties and life is pretty sweet.
Ha! Just kidding! That would be a terrible movie! Of course something goes wrong and the mission is a disaster, and also something happens during the routine "data-stealing" operation in Germany to make Harper question what the mission is really meant to accomplish. Supposedly the man that Harper's been trailing is working for Al-Qaeda and developing a bio-agent, but isn't it also possible that he's been developing a vaccine for a virus that's about to be unleashed on the world? Oh, well, I guess it doesn't matter, because a job's a job, and he's already gotten paid for this one, so might as well see it through...
The German police show up early, because that's how efficient Germans are sometimes, so the squad gets into a shoot-out, so in addition to either saving or dooming the world, they're also cop-killers now. Great. Mike and Harper hide out in a storm drain with the data, and once their injuries are healed, they have to decide how to get back to the U.S. Mike goes first, and after 48 hours Harper winds his way back to Berlin for a pick-up, only he gets the feeling that the exfil squad was sent to take him out, not extract him. Could be all those guns they're shooting at him. He manages to take out the hit team, hides out at a safe house while he heals AGAIN, and then does a little more research into what, exactly, that scientist was working on.
All that's left then is for Harper to somehow fly back to Atlanta and confront the military company's leader about the validity of the mission, and won't he be surprised to find out that Harper's still alive? Not to mention Harper's wife and son, who got a $4 million pay-out after Harper "died" on the mission. So then there's a conundrum, does he announce to his wife and son that he's alive, which might mean they have to return that money? Or should he stay away from them, since they're financially set for life, which was kind of the whole point of taking the new job, to provide for his family. Well, as they say, don't ask questions that you might now want to learn the answers to. I guess this is one of those thought experiments, people sometimes fantasize about faking their own deaths and just moving away and starting over, would you do that if you could?
I guess maybe $4 million doesn't buy as much as it used to - but how much money does a small family need to not have to worry about money any more? There are actors out there who might make $4 million for a single movie, what the hell do they spend it on? And most likely then they'll go on to make more movies, so how much is "enough", or is there never "enough"? Or it is all just "mo' money, mo' problems" at that point? I really wouldn't know.
But I paid attention tonight! So I knew right away when the flashbacks started that they were flashbacks to Harper's childhood, and not just some random kid being forced by his father to hunt, or get a tattoo. Points for me.
Also starring Chris Pine (last seen in "Wonder Woman 1984"), Gillian Jacobs (last heard in George Carlin's American Dream"), Eddie Marsan (last seen in "Their Finest"), JD Pardo (last seen in "Snitch"), Kiefer Sutherland (last seen in "Eye for an Eye"), Florian Munteanu (last seen in "Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings"), Nina Hoss (last seen in "A Most Wanted Man"), Amira Casar (last seen in "Call Me by Your Name"), Fares Fares (last seen in "Child 44"), Sander Thomas, Toby Dixon, Dean Ashton, Dustin Lewis (last seen in "One Night in Miami..."), Cory Scott Allen (last seen in "The Devil All the Time"), Brian Lafontaine (last seen in "The Hate U Give"), Regina Ting Chen, Tyner Rushing, Nicolas Noblitt, Eva Ursescu, Nico Woulard, Tait Fletcher (last seen in "Term Life"), Malosi Leonard, Brandon Melendy, Aristou Meehan, Tudor Velio, Christian Toma, Andrada Corlat, George Pistereanu, Sergei Dmitriev.
RATING: 6 out of 10 smashed lightbulbs
No comments:
Post a Comment