The Contractor

In a church near Fort Bragg, a pastor asks the congregation to pray for "our protectors". One of them is Sergeant First Class James Harper (Chris Pine), a Green Beret with a wrecked knee, four deployments in five years and a pile of unpaid bills. That's how 'The Contractor' begins, the first American film from Swedish director Tarik Saleh, who made 'The Nile Hilton Incident' and moves here into straight action thriller territory.

When a blood test turns up the drugs he's been taking to cope with the pain, the Army discharges him and Harper loses his pension and his health care. With his wife Brianne (Gillian Jacobs) and their young son to support, he takes up his friend Mike's (Ben Foster) offer to join the private military company run by Rusty Jennings (Kiefer Sutherland), a veteran who promises well-paid, clean jobs in the national interest.

The first one takes them to Berlin, where they're watching a virologist (Fares Fares) accused of working for al-Qaeda. The operation goes wrong and Harper ends up alone and hunted through the city, no longer sure who he's working for or whom he can trust while he looks for a way home.

Pine, also an executive producer, reunites with Foster six years after 'Hell or High Water', and Eddie Marsan and Nina Hoss round out the cast. Written by J.P. Davis under the working title 'Violence of Action', it was shot at the end of 2019 across the US, Germany and Romania, with the cinematographer, editor and production designer from Saleh's previous film.

Reviews were lukewarm. Critics liked Pine's restraint and his chemistry with Foster but found a predictable script with a lot of Bourne in it. It opened in US cinemas and on demand on 1 April 2022 and went straight to Prime Video in the UK on 6 May 2022.

• Action
• Drama
• Thriller