| The Contract | |
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Film poster |
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| Directed by | Bruce Beresford |
| Produced by | Boaz Davidson Randall Emmett George Furla Andreas Grosch Avi Lerner Danny Lerner Andreas Schmid Les Weldon |
| Written by | Stephen Katz John Darrouzet J.D. Zeik |
| Starring | John Cusack Morgan Freeman Jamie Anderson Alice Krige Megan Dodds Bill Smitrovich Ian Shaw Ned Bellamy |
| Music by | Normand Corbeil |
| Cinematography | Dante Spinotti |
| Editing by | Mark Warner |
| Studio | Millennium Films |
| Distributed by | First Look International |
| Release date(s) | October 9, 2006 (Haifa) July 24, 2007 (United States) |
| Running time | 97 minutes |
| Country | Germany United States |
| Language | English |
| Box office | $5,549,200 [1] |
The Contract is a 2006 film directed by Bruce Beresford and written by the late television writer Stephen Katz and John Darrouzet. A cat-and-mouse thriller, The Contract stars Oscar-winner Morgan Freeman as assassin Frank Carden and John Cusack as teacher Ray Keene. Released directly to video in the United States and most of Europe, The Contract received little critical notice, despite its high-profile cast.
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Morgan Freeman 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 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 Keenes.
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 and the DSK Bank central headquarters served as one of the main sets.
The scenes on the large rock were filmed at the Zlatnite Mostove on the Vitosha Mountain by Sofia, the capital city of Bulgaria.
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