3 Short Paragraphs: The Contractor

2022, Tarik Saleh (Metropia) -- Amazon

Again, I am thinking about how I am not That Guy. Yes, my brain focuses on repeating thoughts, and obsesses on things over and over. As we age, we look back at What We Once Were, are glad to dispense with some things (I saw fewer things out loud without thinking) and lament other aspects as they are lost. Will I ever get back to being that guy who can get lost in challenging movies, embrace the interesting and slow? Or should I embrace my current state of mind, and absorb and consume because even in the consumption of less-than-average, one can enjoy things, learn interesting ideals of the human condition (both from the characters and the film creators) and grow from it. I have never worried about my fondness for trashy paperback fiction (even in digital format) so should I beat myself up about my current focus on the Not So Good? Let's not and see what happens.

Chris Pine and Ben Foster previously starred together in The Finest Hours and Hell or High Water. They return for a movie about two close friends, almost brothers, out of the military; one is succeeding in life, and the other is not. Circumstances force James (Chris Pine, Star Trek) to go to Mike (Ben Foster, Warcraft) seeking work, as a private contractor. On their first job in Europe, things are not as they are presented and they go very very wrong. And despite the need he has, James must set things right. A very, very mundane action-thriller plot.

There's not much to the movie, but in reading an interview between Pine & Foster, I get why they did the movie, and why it was made. Its less an exploration of style or substance in that sub-genre, and more a character study. Pine comments it would have made a better short story, than a film, and that rings true. Straight forward action stories, in written fiction, the trashy paperback fiction I mentioned, can be immensely fleshed out via character studies. This movie attempts that, but I am not sure it succeeds as much as Pine hoped, as James ends up being the tortured-returned-vet we have seen in tons of other movies and TV episodes, and very little new is explored. But again, I can see why Pine enjoyed playing through the character and even Less Than Average movies can give actors and creators something to explore, and something for us, the viewer, to take with us.