I once used Wesley Snipes' name as a clue to go ahead and watch a new, untried film in which he appears. So now, for the first time, my Snipes-Method of film recommendation has failed. Utterly. I should first have come here to see these reviews.Snipes ought to be ashamed to allow his otherwise earnest efforts to be so wasted in "The Contractor".One of my worst flick fears has come to bitter fruition. I feared that the shaky, blurry, pseudo-documentary, "unconsidered" directing and editing style (first brought to my attention by the Paul Greengrass-directed "Bloody Sunday") might propagate to other films. Greengass' sickening style was then brought to nauseatingly new heights in the last two of the Bourne trilogy films. My fear had come to pass. In my opinion, these films are made really bad by these motion-sickness-inducing methods, which mistake blurry swipes for "action-enhancement". But the "Bourne Franchise," as Greengrass so loving calls his cash cow, apparently convinced others in Hollywood to go unprofessional in the quest for fast, big bucks.Read my lips, you Hollywood types. Action needs to be clearly photographed and presented, not merely hinted at by poor, lazy cinematographic techniques.And "The Contractor" goes so far as to emulate "The Bourne Ultimatum" in inanely-repeated sound bites, in hopes their juvenile (apparently-evaluated) audiences can't sense them. For example, if I hear a cop radio crackling "Yankee-Romeo" one more time, I'll just scream. The chances are good I won't hear it again: I certainly won't ever view "The Contractor" again.I recommend to those of you who have yet to see "The Contractor": just be content with the tranquility this lack affords to your life.2 out of 10; I am tempted to lower that to a 1.

For me, the appearance of Wesley Snipes in a movie is about the worst recommendation possible. He is the most uncharismatic action figure ever brought to screen, eclipsing even the 'muscles from Brussels'. And with a title like 'The Contractor', I was anticipating the cheapest kind of action dross. A bland, boring shoot-'em-up. The moral of which is; you shouldn't pre-judge a movie no matter how negative the omens. Snipes loosened-up and began to ACT instead of just playing a part - that of the cynical action-man more typical of his persona. It was quite a revelation to see emotion actually register on his usually dead-pan expression. Perhaps, being set - most unexpectedly - in little old Britain, the makers realised that dependence upon the sort of expansive pyrotechnics employed to gratify the LA crowd just wouldn't cut it over here. Whatever the case, with British actors outnumbering Americans, I found it much easier to identify with the characters. That alone held my attention for the interim. The pace was much slower, and the combat scenes - although still rather over-the-top - seemed to take second place to story and character development. Putting a child in any movie is always a reliable way to engage viewer emotion, and this was no exception. I actually began to care about the characters, even including Wesney Snipes' - which I would hardly have thought possible - and that is what STORY is all about. Most of the players did a competent job, which was rather a success considering the standards of direction. And here is where I join forces with the critics. The technical aspects of this movie were, quite frankly, incompetent. Time alloted to individuals was often disproportionate. The editing itself was all over the place, with flash-cutting and slow-mo work often resulting in a very disjointed experience. The plot was so riddled with gaps and continuity flaws that it might have been spliced together from a bunch of out-takes. There was far too much incidental music, which also varied excessively in style. Not only that, the 'mood' scores - often developing some lengthy vocal/choral pieces - were too strident, making it difficult to understand the more intimate and subtly-spoken dialogue for who's moment the music was intended to accentuate. And there were lots of silly little things that were still highly significant, like Snipes' ability to evade capture when surrounded by police (including a helicopter) without even a change of clothes and also whilst seriously injured. His first wound cleared-up miraculously in just one day. And how did he get back to the USA without a passport? And moreover; how did he manage to remain free when he arrived? These issues required explanation. Some have compared this movie to 'Leon', as an example of how good it might have been. And the sad thing is; both the money and the acting talent were available to pull it off. Sadly; the effort failed. I've awarded it 7 stars because I like the British locations and the general level of acting. But judged on technical aspects alone, 4 stars would have been my limit.

I read in the papers that W.Snipes was broke so no wonder he would take parts in low budget projects like The Contractor.He is just the next action star to join a growing club:the penniless action stars of the 90s (Van Damme,Segal,Lundgren,Snipes). Here he stars the lead in a cheap action flick which was shot in Bulgaria( we are supposed to believe that the location is London, like only a complete moron would buy that)The story is the one of 1000 other movies: retired special forces good guy gets hired by the government again to do a wet job- after that government wants to get rid of him- good guy gets away after killing bad guys (was that a spoiler? guess not!) The star of the movie: the little girl (Eliza Bennett) outperforms everybody else of the cast!!!One star is for her plus one star for eye candy Lena Headey, makes 2 stars. Only for die hard Snipes fans!Everybody else:avoid!

In the words of Charles Dance's character in this film, "Bollocks!" No plot, no character development, and utterly unbelievable.Full of stuff that just doesn't happen in the real world (since when were British police inspectors armed with handguns in shoulder holsters?). Full of mistakes (Bulgarian trains in London?). Full of dull and artificial dialogue. And the directing/editing is awful - wobbly hand-held camera shots that add nothing to the film except a vague feeling of seasickness; confusing jump-cuts; no structure.Wesley Snipes' character is totally unsympathetic - why should we care what happens to him? Direct to video? Direct to the dustbin!