MovieChat Forums > The Contract (2007) Discussion > Great Actors, Terrible Movies

Great Actors, Terrible Movies

posted 17 years ago by thomasparri_hughes80
5 replies | jump to latest

Over the last couple of weeks I saw this Contract nonsense and 'Shoot Em up'. In these two movies are 4 of the best actors working today; Clive Owen (Children of Men), Paul Giamatti (American Splendor, Sideways), Morgan Freeman (Se7en etc.) and John Cusack (Grosse Point Blank, Being John Malkovich).

What I am wandering is why fine actors like these (and there's alot more too - Pacino, DeNiro I'm looking at you!) waste their time making these awful movies. Does the script look great and things just go wrong in the shoot? Is a great movie ruined by hiring poor directors? Do the whole cast and crew have a huge amount of fun making these terrible movies? Or is it all just about the greenbacks? And if so, do these guys not have enough money already? Is their artistic credibility worth so little to them that they agree to do this rubbish?

Now, I can understand an up and coming actor agreeing to make a movie that they know will turn out to be poor, perhaps they make a crappy movie to finance an art house flick that will make no money but that they really believe in. I can respect that. But why, oh why, do established names have to degrade themselves in this way. Surely they have the clout to get a no budget, art house movie made?

I'm sorry for ranting but after seeing The Contract this issue was bothering me, then last nite I saw Shoot 'em Up and it was the last straw, I just had to get this off my chest!

Tom

[–] coolbrett 17 years ago

yeah i often wonder the same thing. i guess its because they think it will be good but doesnt turn out good at all. i can see how alot of actors would jump at the chance to be in a brian depalma film and look how the black dahlia turned out! i bet everyone in that regrets doing it.

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[–] thomasparri_hughes80 17 years ago

Yeah I hear you, good choice of example. But when Cusack and Freeman read the dialogue to this they must have thought, man, this is not going to work!

[–] puschit-1 17 years ago

I really don't know. As everyone else here I do love both Cusack and Freeman, two incredible actors. Moreover, so far, I enjoyed every single movie there were in. RIght before watching The Contract I was talking to my mom via phone and said to her "We'll be watching a movie. I don't know anything about that movie but it has Cusack and Freeman, so we can't do anything wrong" ... ah the irony!

I'd say, blame it on the director and writer. On paper, this could have been a good movie. The movie just could not decide what it wanted to be:
A hunt movie with lots of action? No, the action scenes were too few, and they were too lame and tame.
A psycho thriller? No, it has everything it needs to be one but it wasn't really exploited.
A conspiracy movie where you don't know whom to trust up to the end? No, the subplot with the killer going for freeman was shallow, revealed fast and looked like they added it last minute because movies "need" an addional twist these days.

I think we don't have enough material to work with in order to make a conspiracy movie. And I also think you'll agree that we do have enough mindless action movies already and that Freeman and Cusack shouldn't be in one.
So I'd say, the movie should have been a psycho thriller. It should have concentrated more on the characters relationships between father, son and killer and less on the other killers and cops (and less action scenes). The subplot of the traitor should have been eliminated entirely to have more room for dialogue. And I would NOT have made Cusack an ex-cop - that alone ruins the movie because it destroys the entire idea of "an average person like you and me ends up with a gun in his hand and a dangerous killer to guard, alon in the wilderness". I know they made him an ex-cop to explain why he is able to take out 3 out of 4 killers but that's not what should have happened anyway.

Anyway, what I wanted to say is that this movie HAD potential and maybe Cusack and Freeman thought like me. Maybe the script was changed, maybe they couldn't see how big the action and conspiracy part would be. But yeah, the dialogue was quite poor to begin with so they still should have foreseen the disaster ... or maybe they thought they could change the dialogue themselves, ad-libbing many scenes but the director didn't allow it.

[–] nosnojsirhc 17 years ago

I don't know how the whole system works, but I imagine that there are favors that are called in, debts paid, ingenues needing introductions to the industry, daddy's boys wanting to hone their chops on a production, and whole works thrown together to get this done. Agents probably spin the pieces without full scripts, and as someone else said here, scripts can change, too. Producers muddle, things are shopped in committee, artists quit, egos flare. Finally, people want money. Any combo of these, along with the same basic 'filler' concept that results in so much genre crap being dumped in stores around the world, could result in $#!TTY movies. In a perfect world, people would have integrity, standards, and ideals.

[–] murry-4 17 years ago

I just watched this and the only thing I can come up with to explain it was that John Cusack and Morgan Freeman had no idea what they were getting themselves into. It had to be a way bigger budget when they signed on. Then it had to be cut back at some point, which would explain the piss poor actors with the exception of the three leads and the terribly effects.

Also, I think maybe this movie was shot in two goes. I think that John Cusack and Morgan Freeman made one movie and all those other nobodies made a different movie. Then the director obviously just had no idea what the hell he was doing. And I imagine the script had to be crap and Cusack and Freeman were polishing turds with every line. I don't know. It was all such a mess. I'd love to see these two actors together in an actual good movie, though. Shame this one was rubbish.