Tags:
Film: The Contractor
Year: 2013
Director: Sean Olson
Writer: Bradford Holt, Sean Olson and Peter Sullivan
Starring: Danny Trejo, Christina Cox and Brad Rowe
Review:
This film begins with a young man running away from the police, the young man played by Rene Moran. The police finally catch up to him and beat him down for running.
The film then shifts to a well-to-do family. The wife is played by Christina Cox. She works for a hospital where she helps to raise money through donations. Her husband is a lawyer and played by Brad Rowe. He used to work for the district attorney’s office, but now has his own practice. They have a daughter played by Taylor Spreitler.
Cox is running a cocktail fundraiser at her home for the hospital she works for. Her family has just bought a new home and she wants to have the event there, but they need work done before they can. She starts to check out different contractors who could do the work. She wants Rowe to help her with the interviewing process, but he just has opened his own practice, so he is really busy.
Early on we get that someone is watching this family. Cox is running on the beach a couple of times and someone is taking pictures of her. At night someone has cloned Rowe’s cell phone and listening in to his conversation. The person also looks in the windows from a distance.
Cox and Rowe cannot find someone to do the work they need done for cheap enough. Originally Rowe was going to do it himself, but he has been too busy. While on the phone, Rowe asks his colleague if he knows of a contractor. He doesn’t and they go on with their conversation.
Later the guy he spoke with sends him an e-mail for a link to a contractor he knows. Rowe looks at the work he does and decides to call him.
The man turns out to be Danny Trejo. The price he estimates for them is perfect and the couple decides to hire him to do the work. There is something that’s no quite right about him though. He watches Cox while she is doing yoga through a window. He goes through files in Rowe’s office. It turns out that he is the one that has been spying on the family.
Trejo has befriended Spreitler and helping her with her Spanish. Cox doesn’t trust him though. She wants her husband to get rid of him when she finds him coming out of Rowe’s office. He reluctant does and Trejo is not happy about it. This won’t be the last they see of him.
Cox and her friend, Arianne Zucker, search the internet for Trejo to find out his true identity. We learn that Trejo is the father of Moran. We also learn that Trejo is angry about what happened to his son. Rowe was the prosecutor who put his son away. He also used to work for the phone company so he is intelligent and knows how to use technology. He also starts to mess with Rowe like driving nails into his tires.
Trejo is trying to ruin the family. He is out to make Rowe look like he is cheating on Cox. With his use of technology, he has a lot of evidence to show her that he has done a great job of fabricating. Will Trejo succeed in ruining this family? Can he convince Cox that Rowe is cheating on him? Will Trejo make Cox and Rowe feel the same way he did when his son was killed in prison?
This film isn’t good. There wasn’t a lot I liked, but I did like the use of technology in this one. I’m not sure how many of this is realistic, like how quickly he can clone the cell phone from outside of the window. I do like how calculating Trejo’s character is in this one. He really does think of everything and I do like seeing that. I do think Cox and Spreitler are quite attractive, which doesn’t hurt.
With that said, there are a lot of things that were highly unbelievable. I had a huge problem that Cox believes Rowe is cheating on her. Cox knows that Trejo is messing with them, yet she still believes that her husband is sleeping with someone. I just feel like it was written that way to build tension, but it doesn’t work for me. I also don’t know how much of the technology that Trejo uses would work. I think Trejo is great in the aspect of this role that he is menacing looking and would be scary to have hunting you down. My problem is the way he looks; it makes it somewhat unbelievable that he would be this tech savvy. I am not saying it isn’t possible, I just don’t see it and didn’t feel he fit the role well enough.
I would not recommend seeing this film. The story is somewhat boring. There are a lot of unbelievable things that happen and things that I personally felt didn’t make a lot of sense. The acting is subpar and the story is just as bad. The only real redeeming factors are Trejo plays the ‘badass’ character well, but I don’t believe he is as tech savvy as they have him. The female characters in this are all attractive, but definitely don’t save this one. I do not feel this one is worth the time.
My Rating: 4 out of 10