Cast: Morgan Freeman, John Cusack, Jamie Anderson

DIRECTOR: Bruce Beresford

There are some movies burdened by expectations. And then there are some which take you by surprise. The Contract, a film made in 2006 which quickly moved to the DVD market, falls in the second category — a pleasantly slow film about a hired assassin and his chance encounter with a father-son duo.

Unlike last week's The Bourne Ultimatum, The Contract's professional hitman Frank Cardin (Freeman) doesn't survive almost anything, including falls from buildings and horrific car crashes. The film is about the quieter moments when two completely different and yet somewhat alike men — Cardin, a disillusioned ex-military intelligence officer fighting now for money and not glory, and Ray Keene (Cusack), a former policeman trying to ensure his son doesn't go astray — meet.

For most of the film, Cardin, Keene and his son Chris (Anderson) trudge through the scenic Cedar Pine forest with Cardin's killer friends on their heels and police trying to catch up. Beresford is vague on what Keene and Chris hope to achieve by thus marching on but it does give them enough time on screen for us to understand and like the three.

All credit for that to Freeman. In one of his few bad roles, he still commands as much respect and attention as he did when he sprang up before Jim Carrey in Bruce Almighty and declared: "I'm God."

The point where Cardin's path crosses with the Keenes in the forest is also nicely built up, down to the crashed car in which Cardin was being transported by the police bobbing on the river. The real treat, however, is the expression on Cardin's face when Keene shoots away a helicopter seconds before he is to ride it to freedom.

... contd.