Don’t call James Harper a mercenary.
He’s an Army Ranger—or was, ‘til they kicked him out for all the painkillers in his blood. Ironic, given that he needed those meds because of what he gave to the Rangers: his blood, sweat and a working knee. Didn’t matter to James that the knee looked more like a movie monster underneath the brace, a hunk of fast-food meat barely covered in scarred skin. He took the drugs so he could stay with his team—stay active, help his country. Don’t tell James he’s not a Ranger.
But the Army tells him he’s not welcome anymore. And with the bills piling up and his mental health spiraling down, he needed to find work.
He has no lack of offers either: He’s an old war hero, after all. Shook hands with the President and everything. Private military contractors are lining up to sign him up. And even though his wife would rather he give up jobs that requires guns and bullets—she wishes that he get a nice, safe gig at home—James knows it might be tough to keep the collectors at bay with a job at Home Depot.
Mike—his best friend, his brother-in-arms—offers him an opportunity.
He’d be working for a man named Rusty Jennings. He runs an outfit filled with tough, trained ex-military types. They’re good. Very good. Instead of smashing into conflict like a sledgehammer, Rusty says they’re in and out like a scalpel: in and out with a minimum of fuss. And the only time blood spills is if something goes wrong.
Most important? It’s honorable work. Their contracts, Rusty says, come straight from the government—black ops when the U.S. doesn’t want a black eye. But make no mistake, they’ll be making the world a little safer when they go to work. A little better.
Rusty has a job available right now, in fact. James is told that a scientist in Berlin is dabbling in biochemical warfare, his work funded by Al Qaeda and Syria. It’s believed he might be weaponizing a dangerous strain of influenza. Rusty’s team, including Mike and James, needs to find out if that’s true or not. And if it is? Well, they’ll burn that bridge when they come to it.
Turns out, they burn more than bridges.
The operation goes sideways, and Rusty’s four-man team is quickly whittled down to two. As James and Mike struggle to stay alive, both quickly realize that they’ll have to split up: James’ busted knee just can’t keep up without more rest. Mike agrees to get the scientist’s research back to Rusty. And when the drop is completed, Mike promises he’ll be back to make sure James gets out OK, too.
But after Mike leaves, James begins to wonder.
Before James killed the scientist, the guy kept telling him that his work would save millions of lives.
The scientist was lying. Of course he was, James believes. But what if he wasn’t? Would that make James the bad guy?
If James takes pride in his military service, his greatest joys are actually back home: his wife, Brianne; and his son, Jack.
It’s not easy being a family man and a military man. We hear some sad stories of soldiers leaving their families (in one way or another), and James never wanted to be such a story himself. He made a promise, he tells someone, “never [to] forsake my family,” and he means it.
James begins to question his marching orders, too. The movie doesn’t quite answer whether he would’ve fought against the nefarious plot that’s been set in motion if he didn’t have to; he was as much fighting to survive as to rectify any wrongs. But the fact that he does battle against some pretty terrible goals should still be lauded.
James seems to be a man of faith, as are others in the film. He’s in church when the pastor blesses a trio of soldiers as they head off on assignment. (“May God bless you and protect you,” the pastor says, praying over the soldiers as the rest of the congregation also bows their heads. Only James stares forward, lost in thought—as if wishing he could go, too.)
When Mike invites James for dinner, Mike’s family clasps hands for a dinnertime blessing. (“Thank You for this food, and thank You for bringing Uncle James back safely,” Mike says.) James shares a dinnertime prayer with an unexpected rescuer, too.
The scientist, Salim Mohamed Mohsin, is rumored to have connections with Al Qaeda. But when James talks with him, he says, “I don’t believe in God. I believe in science.” Someone compares a mission locale with Eden, and says its mountains looked like they were holding up heaven.
James and his wife kiss once or twice, including when James briefly cuddles up with her in bed. (It’s not a sexual scene; he simply gives her a check—an advance on his contract work—and essentially says goodbye.) We see James shirtless several times. In one scene, he lies in a bathtub, and the camera views him from the side—a gun resting on his exposed hip.
As you might expect, The Contractor is plenty violent, and we are exposed to some graphic scenes. In one such scene, a man bashes another to death with a rock. While we don’t see most of the blows, we do see the victim’s head afterwards—looking as much like a rotting cabbage as it does an identifiable face.
Other deaths are less grotesque, though we do see several people shot through the head. (The deaths are accompanied by sprays of blood.) Victims are shot elsewhere, and some die. A shootout with police leaves several lifeless people strewn on the ground. Other gunshot victims bleed slowly from their midsections, leaving clothes and hands bloody. Some eventually bleed out, though James saves one by transfusing some of his own blood into the victim.
Characters die via explosion. One motorcycle rider gets struck with a cinder block (presumably killing him). Another is stabbed in the gut and spends several movie minutes slumped helplessly against a wall. A man apparently dies after being injected with a drug underneath a fingernail. Evidence of how he died is covered up with a dramatic explosion (which also kills a security guard and loads of laboratory animals).
James’ injured knee is pretty grotesque. We see just how bad it is, and we learn that he aggravates the injury during the course of his adventures. Sometimes he’s forced to stick a syringe in the thing to suck out fluid building up there.
A young boy receives a real tattoo for his birthday, and he suffers through the procedure. Threats are made. A vehicle is set on fire. A man gets knocked out via an injection. We hear about the suicide of a fellow Ranger, and it’s suggested his self-inflicted death isn’t the first one that James and his family have had to deal with. Such deaths, it seems, are euphemistically dealt with by telling others that the soldier “died in his sleep.”
About 35 f-words and a dozen s-words are uttered. We also hear sporadic uses of the words “a–,” “d–n” and “h—.”
The scientist smokes. James and Mike share a beer after dinner one evening, and Mike suggests they go out for another once the current mission is over.
James takes a number of drugs to deal with the pain in his knee. We see him pop pills and inject himself with some sort of drug. When James gets called in to face his new commanding officer, he’s told that his blood is “filthy” with evidence of the stuff.
James lies to his wife about his job, telling her that he’ll be just “babysitting” corporate executives. “Not dangerous at all,” he says, though she knows he’s lying. Lies and betrayal are an integral part of the titular contractor’s plot, though the movie certainly doesn’t condone either.
The Contractor deals, slightly, with the entwined issues of physical trauma and mental health in the military. James, we see, is struggling with both: His knee is torn apart. His mind, the movie suggests, is slowly crumbling. His wife finds him on the family roof in the middle of the night, putting a few more shingles in it “before the weather comes.” After James and Mike go to the funeral of a fellow Ranger who committed suicide, Mike asks James how he’s doing.
“I’m fine,” James says. Mike reminds him that that’s just what their late friend said, too, right before he took his own life..
Rusty even uses that trauma as a selling tool for James. “We gave [the military] our minds, our bodies, our spirits, and they chewed us up and spit us out.” It’s OK, James is told, to use the skills the military gave him for a big payday or two. “It’s OK to cash in,” Mike tells him.
But let’s not mistake The Contractor for an issues-related think pic. Setting those fairly superficial ruminations aside, this is a straightforward, R-rated actioner—frenetic and profane and, at times, pretty bloody.
The Contractor does want us to consider the issues of mental health in the military. It seems, gratifyingly, to understand the importance of faith to many who serve. But the story is more about prey than prayer. And the movie’s many predators take down many a person—both innocent and guilty—with extreme prejudice.
Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.
