When I went to see the movie The Outfit, I thought it was going to be exactly what The Contractor is… a movie about special ops soldiers or spies working for clandestine organizations. The Contractor is, in every way, exactly what it sounds like it’s gonna be. And The Outfit isn’t and blew this out of the water… not that they are related films. Just sayin’.

The Contractor stars Chris Pine as an honorably discharged army vet who has lost his benefits. He may or may not be adjusting well to civilian life, but he certainly needs an income and a private contractor offers him a well-paying job in Germany. Things don’t go smoothly and soon he’s on the run from everyone… because of <insert dramatic sting> a conspiracy that goes all the way to the… well… to the middle really.

Yeah, this is dad movie 101… A Jack Ryan movie without the name, any of a dozen Tom Clancy properties. That doesn’t make it bad… but it does create a hurdle that the movie just can’t leap. The movie is… ok?… it’s pretty average, pretty slow, and kind of generic. It’s not bad, exactly… I just got a lot of daydreaming in while watching it. Not the most interesting thing, to say the least.

It doesn’t help that the movie wants to have a theme about how difficult soldiers have it coming home from war. And while that does give Chris Pine some time to act, it ultimately just gets set aside for the specaial ops shootouts. Good theme poorly integrated.

Yeah, this one is marginally all right. It’s not completely boring, it’s more-or-less well filmed, has some action beats the generic music assures us are exciting, and then it runs a good twenty minutes too long and ends. What an amazing recommendation!

Score: 70