Take a big cauldron, put in some Terrence Malick-style poetic dialogue and some Transporter-type action (read gore-filled, yet pulse-racing), throw in a handful of great actors, mix it all up and voila! You have The Contract.

Forget every thriller you have ever seen. This film is fast and crisp, with no room for wasted scenes or dialogues. Yet it moves with unhurried grace, like the nervous moments before a shootout, where everything has to go like clockwork. Marvellously done!

Ray Keene (Cusack) and his son Chris (Anderson) go on a camping trip to bond better. In the middle of the woods, they find assassin Frank Cardin (Freeman) who’s running from the law. Determined to keep his son safe while trying to deliver Cardin over to the law, Ray sheperds them towards civilisation.

As the trio trek through the woods, Ray and Cardin learn a lot, while accepting each other as equals. But things don’t get too cosy as Cardin’s trigger-happy friends are hot on their heels. Screenplay writers Stephen Katz and John Darrouzet have done an A-1 job of keeping the dialogues crunchy and never letting any melodrama or cheesiness slip past them into the script.

Kudos also goes to Dante Spinotti for cinematography. The streams and woods of Bulgaria may never have looked so beautiful, but just as you begin to take in the scenic beauty, there’s a spine-chilling chase weaving around the pine trees. Even the scenes from the sniper’s point of view are shot with precision and heavy detailing.

Morgan Freeman steals the show completely, John Cusack is also brilliant as a widower who’s trying to bring his errant son to order. Watch out for the bursting talent in Jamie Anderson; he shares an amazing chemistry with Freeman and even manages to upstage the legend at some points. Director Beresford must be given all the credit for spacing out the movie so well. You’ll never know where your 2 hours went. Time and money well spent.