A mostly admirable and moderately enjoyable tale of CIA assassins and deadly intrigue, Contract Killers is kept from being even better by these little clunkers scattered throughout the script. There are these moments and story dynamics that are just not right or not right enough which prevent the film from building any dramatic momentum. On the whole, this is a nice piece of work and is certainly a lot smarter than your average action-thriller with a modest budget and a cast where the biggest star is Nick Mancuso. But while writer/director Justin Rhodes handles the filmmaking perfectly well, he really needed somebody to give his screenplay several minor rewrites. That could have vastly improved what is now only an okay movie.
Things open up with Sarah (Frida Farrell) and her husband (Jeremy Wood) drinking drugged wine. When Sarah awakes, she finds her husband dead with the name "Lisa" carved into his forehead and cops surrounding her house, obviously there to arrest her. Well, it turns out Sarah is really a CIA-employed killer named Jane. She kills several cops to make her escape and figures out she's been set up by her handler Witkoff (Nick Mancuso). To unravel the reason why, Jane flees to the island of Trinidad with two other assassins (Rhett Giles and G. Anthony Joseph) on her trail. Once there, she meets a Brit (Christian Willis) who only wants to bang her but gets caught up in Jane's dilemma and faces death himself. After one nice plot twist, Jane is left with one last chance to make sure that she makes it off the island alive.
Contract Killers isn't flashy or particularly stylish but it is largely effective. The action scenes are cleverly done to maximize the excitement while minimizing any sign of budget limitations. There's a fine pace to how things unfold and writer/director Rhodes manages to set up and sustain several separate conflicts throughout the story. The performances are uniformly strong, though Mancuso whispers a bit too much of his dialog. He's trying to build up to his character eventually exploding, but the payoff isn't worth listening to someone who sounds like they have laryngitis. There's a lot to like about this motion picture.
The things not to like, however, are apparent and exasperating enough to take this above average effort and bring it back down to mediocre. Let me give you three examples of what I mean.
In the beginning, the movie tries to build sympathy for Jane by having her cry over her dead husband. That's supposed to humanize her and get the audience on her side. However, Jane and her husband barely say 5 sentences to each other before he winds up dead, so you can't care that much about her grief. Then, Jane almost immediately kills a few cops as part of her getaway. But murdering cops, like killing children or animals, is something to which the ordinary viewer is always going to respond negatively unless you do something to justify it. Even though she's being framed for her husband's death, when she blows away police officers who are simply doing their duty, that kind of makes her guilty anyway, doesn't it?
Then at the end, Jane teams up with one of the CIA contractors sent after her to fight the third assassin on her trail. Well, two good guys vs. one bad guy pretty much destroys any sense of danger. The good guys have the advantage and unless you build up the villain as some sort of super badass, the good guys would have to be extremely pathetic to not carry the day. When it's two against one, it's not natural to root for the two.
And in the middle of Contract Killers well, there's no polite way to put this. There's a love scene where Frida Farrell needed to get naked and she doesn't. I don't begrudge any woman who declines to be exploited in this way but if you're making a relatively low budget, R-rated action-thriller and there's a love scene with your lead actress, she has to disrobe and show off her naughty bits. It is basically a prerequisite for this sort of flick. Contract Killers isn't some esoteric bit of arty indulgence. It's a cheap addition to an already crowded genre. The bigger budget versions have bigger stars, bigger explosions and are aimed at a bigger audience, which means they can sometimes skimp on the nudity. With something like this film, you don't have the option of your lead actress keeping her clothes on.
And frankly, Farrell getting into her birthday suit wouldn't have been entirely gratuitous. The love scene is supposed to about Jane emerging from a state of emotional numbness and getting naked would have been a legitimate way of representing that. Instead, Contract Killers tries to convey Jane's emotional revival by having her boink a new guy while simultaneously having flashbacks to the husband she found dead less than 24 hours ago, which is really messed up.
This film is significantly superior to a lot of action-thrillers out there but I can't wholeheartedly recommend it. You wouldn't regret watching it, though, so give it a look if you want.
Things open up with Sarah (Frida Farrell) and her husband (Jeremy Wood) drinking drugged wine. When Sarah awakes, she finds her husband dead with the name "Lisa" carved into his forehead and cops surrounding her house, obviously there to arrest her. Well, it turns out Sarah is really a CIA-employed killer named Jane. She kills several cops to make her escape and figures out she's been set up by her handler Witkoff (Nick Mancuso). To unravel the reason why, Jane flees to the island of Trinidad with two other assassins (Rhett Giles and G. Anthony Joseph) on her trail. Once there, she meets a Brit (Christian Willis) who only wants to bang her but gets caught up in Jane's dilemma and faces death himself. After one nice plot twist, Jane is left with one last chance to make sure that she makes it off the island alive.
Contract Killers isn't flashy or particularly stylish but it is largely effective. The action scenes are cleverly done to maximize the excitement while minimizing any sign of budget limitations. There's a fine pace to how things unfold and writer/director Rhodes manages to set up and sustain several separate conflicts throughout the story. The performances are uniformly strong, though Mancuso whispers a bit too much of his dialog. He's trying to build up to his character eventually exploding, but the payoff isn't worth listening to someone who sounds like they have laryngitis. There's a lot to like about this motion picture.
The things not to like, however, are apparent and exasperating enough to take this above average effort and bring it back down to mediocre. Let me give you three examples of what I mean.
In the beginning, the movie tries to build sympathy for Jane by having her cry over her dead husband. That's supposed to humanize her and get the audience on her side. However, Jane and her husband barely say 5 sentences to each other before he winds up dead, so you can't care that much about her grief. Then, Jane almost immediately kills a few cops as part of her getaway. But murdering cops, like killing children or animals, is something to which the ordinary viewer is always going to respond negatively unless you do something to justify it. Even though she's being framed for her husband's death, when she blows away police officers who are simply doing their duty, that kind of makes her guilty anyway, doesn't it?
Then at the end, Jane teams up with one of the CIA contractors sent after her to fight the third assassin on her trail. Well, two good guys vs. one bad guy pretty much destroys any sense of danger. The good guys have the advantage and unless you build up the villain as some sort of super badass, the good guys would have to be extremely pathetic to not carry the day. When it's two against one, it's not natural to root for the two.
And in the middle of Contract Killers well, there's no polite way to put this. There's a love scene where Frida Farrell needed to get naked and she doesn't. I don't begrudge any woman who declines to be exploited in this way but if you're making a relatively low budget, R-rated action-thriller and there's a love scene with your lead actress, she has to disrobe and show off her naughty bits. It is basically a prerequisite for this sort of flick. Contract Killers isn't some esoteric bit of arty indulgence. It's a cheap addition to an already crowded genre. The bigger budget versions have bigger stars, bigger explosions and are aimed at a bigger audience, which means they can sometimes skimp on the nudity. With something like this film, you don't have the option of your lead actress keeping her clothes on.
And frankly, Farrell getting into her birthday suit wouldn't have been entirely gratuitous. The love scene is supposed to about Jane emerging from a state of emotional numbness and getting naked would have been a legitimate way of representing that. Instead, Contract Killers tries to convey Jane's emotional revival by having her boink a new guy while simultaneously having flashbacks to the husband she found dead less than 24 hours ago, which is really messed up.
This film is significantly superior to a lot of action-thrillers out there but I can't wholeheartedly recommend it. You wouldn't regret watching it, though, so give it a look if you want.