The Contract
Encyclopedia
Bruce Beresford
Bruce Beresford is an Australian film director who has made more than 30 feature films over a 40-year career.-Early life:...
and written by the late television writer Stephen Katz and John Darrouzet. A cat-and-mouse thriller, The Contract stars Oscar-winner Morgan Freeman
Morgan Freeman
Morgan Freeman is an American actor, film director, aviator and narrator. He is noted for his reserved demeanor and authoritative speaking voice. Freeman has received Academy Award nominations for his performances in Street Smart, Driving Miss Daisy, The Shawshank Redemption and Invictus and won...
as assassin Frank Carden and John Cusack
John Cusack
John Paul Cusack is an American film actor and screenwriter. He has appeared in more than 50 films, including The Journey of Natty Gann, Say Anything..., Grosse Point Blank, The Thin Red Line, Stand by Me, Con Air, Being John Malkovich, High Fidelity, Serendipity, Runaway Jury, The Ice Harvest,...
as teacher Ray Keene. Released directly to video in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and most of Europe, The Contract received little critical notice, despite its high-profile cast.
Plot
Morgan FreemanMorgan Freeman
Morgan Freeman is an American actor, film director, aviator and narrator. He is noted for his reserved demeanor and authoritative speaking voice. Freeman has received Academy Award nominations for his performances in Street Smart, Driving Miss Daisy, The Shawshank Redemption and Invictus and won...
is Frank Carden, a professional assassin who has been hired to kill a reclusive billionaire named Lydell Hammond, Sr. Carden's plan goes awry when he gets injured in a car accident and ends up in the hospital. When 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.
John Cusack
John Cusack
John Paul Cusack is an American film actor and screenwriter. He has appeared in more than 50 films, including The Journey of Natty Gann, Say Anything..., Grosse Point Blank, The Thin Red Line, Stand by Me, Con Air, Being John Malkovich, High Fidelity, Serendipity, Runaway Jury, The Ice Harvest,...
is widower Ray Keene, a high school gym teacher, ex-cop, and well-intentioned but not very able dad to Chris (Jamie Anderson). Ray belatedly realizes the need to bond with his son when the latter gets caught smoking pot, 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. Most of the Marshals end up dead; the car crashed and 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 try rescue Carden and kill the Keenes.
Production
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.The film was shot almost exclusively in Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
and the DSK Bank
DSK Bank
DSK Bank is a major Bulgarian bank. It has been owned by the Hungarian OTP Bank since 2003, being transformed into a joint-stock company in 1999, and was founded in 1951 as the country's savings bank....
central headquarters served as one of the main sets.
The scenes on the large rock were filmed at the Zlatnite Mostove
Zlatnite Mostove
Zlatnite Mostove is the largest stone river on Vitosha Mountain, Bulgaria. The feature is situated in the valley of Vladayska River, extending 2.2 km, and up to 150 m wide, with several ‘tributary’ stone rivers. The stone river is ‘descending’ from elevation 1800 m above sea level...
on the Vitosha
Vitosha
Vitosha is a mountain massif, on the outskirts of Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria. Vitosha is one of the tourists symbols of Sofia and the closest site for hiking, alpinism and skiing. Convenient bus lines and rope ways render the mountain easily accessible. Vitosha has the outlines of an enormous...
Mountain by Sofia
Sofia
Sofia is the capital and largest city of Bulgaria and the 12th largest city in the European Union with a population of 1.27 million people. It is located in western Bulgaria, at the foot of Mount Vitosha and approximately at the centre of the Balkan Peninsula.Prehistoric settlements were excavated...
, the capital city of Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
.
Cast
- John CusackJohn CusackJohn Paul Cusack is an American film actor and screenwriter. He has appeared in more than 50 films, including The Journey of Natty Gann, Say Anything..., Grosse Point Blank, The Thin Red Line, Stand by Me, Con Air, Being John Malkovich, High Fidelity, Serendipity, Runaway Jury, The Ice Harvest,...
as Ray Keene - Jamie Anderson as Chris Keene
- Morgan FreemanMorgan FreemanMorgan Freeman is an American actor, film director, aviator and narrator. He is noted for his reserved demeanor and authoritative speaking voice. Freeman has received Academy Award nominations for his performances in Street Smart, Driving Miss Daisy, The Shawshank Redemption and Invictus and won...
as Frank Carden - Megan DoddsMegan DoddsMegan Lynne Dodds is an American stage and television actress.-Biography:Megan Dodds was born in Sacramento, California, and after High School she enrolled in a community college where she was cast as Bananas in John Guare's The House of Blue Leaves...
as Sandra - Jonathan HydeJonathan HydeJonathan Hyde is an Australian-born English actor, well known for his roles as J. Bruce Ismay, the managing director of the White Star Line in Titanic, Egyptologist Allen Chamberlain in The Mummy and Sam Parrish/Van Pelt, the hunter in Jumanji. He is married to the Scottish soprano Isobel Buchanan...
as Turner - Corey JohnsonCorey JohnsonCorey Johnson is an American actor largely active in the United Kingdom. Johnson was born John Johnson in New Orleans, Louisiana....
as Davis - Alice KrigeAlice KrigeAlice Maud Krige is a South African actress. Her first feature film role was as the Gilbert and Sullivan singer Sybil Gordon in the 1981 Academy Award-winning film Chariots of Fire...
as Miles - Ian ShawIan Shaw (actor)Ian Shaw is a British actor. He is the son of actress Mary Ure and actor Robert Shaw. His first role was in 1993 in an episode of Casualty. Since then he has appeared in the films Century , Moondance , The Boys From County Clare , The Contract with Morgan Freeman and John Cusack, and Johnny...
as Michaels - Jonas Talkington as paramedic
- Spike Dauner as helicopter pilot #1