The Contractor

As a model Green Beret during four tours overseas, James Harper deserves better from his military superiors than a discharge for questionable medical reasons.

Harper also deserves a less formulaic action vehicle with a less generic title than The Contractor, and so does Chris Pine, the actor who plays him with understated persuasion and complexity.

Instead, this hollow assembly-line thriller pushes aside any meaningful exploration of Harper’s moral conflict between loyalty and bitterness in favor of cliched set pieces out of a rejected Bourne franchise entry.

His discharge puts an immediate strain on James’ family, including his wife (Gillian Jacobs) and special-needs child, which now faces mounting bills as he plans for an uncertain future while still burdened by a legacy left by his overbearing late father.

James finds a possible outlet when he visits Mike (Ben Foster), a former special-forces officer who suggests his buddy check out work as a private government contractor.

“We gave them our minds, our bodies, and our spirit, and they chewed us up and spit us out,” says Rusty (Kiefer Sutherland), a fellow disenfranchised ex-soldier who now assigns contractors to covert black ops missions for a quick buck.

Apprehensive but desperate, James accepts an assignment in Germany, where he joins a counterterrorism team trying to locate a suspect linked to Al-Qaeda. But after the operation is compromised, he’s not sure who he can trust.

The action sequences are assembled into a slick and stylish package by Swedish director Tarik Saleh (The Nile Hilton Incident). Yet while exploring familiar themes of deception and betrayal, the film settles for embellishments and heavy-handed contrivances.

Perhaps the project is meant to pay tribute to the physical rigors and requirements for military personnel, the uncertainty and mental strain facing their families, or the gray areas that can exist between military regulations and common sense.

However, while the muddled screenplay is initially heartfelt and provocative, the film thrusts James into a maze of outlandish conspiracies and tired action-hero tropes in the second half. Along the way, it never generates much meaningful tension or sociopolitical intrigue.

Pine’s determined portrayal finds balance between James’ external macho posturing and internal trepidation over financial and psychological troubles. As a man forced into a different type of bravery and sacrifice, Pine conveys a credibility that The Contractor is largely missing.

Rated R, 103 minutes.