We spoke with Ben Foster ahead of the release of the new film The Contractor, and the actor detailed what went into his performance in the film. Available in theaters and digitally on April 1, The Contractor stars Foster alongside Chris Pine. It's an action-packed thriller with Pine as an elite soldier who's on the run for his life after getting caught up in a dangerous conspiracy. Foster co-stars as Pine's brother-in-arms and former commanding officer.
Speaking with MovieWeb alongside Pine in our new exclusive interview, Foster shed some light on his character's portrayal. The actor revealed how he felt a certain connection to the movie based on the elements of trauma and how that fits into the story. As Foster explains:
"I know a little bit about this, maybe nothing, or maybe I have some kind of parallel emotional connection to the story. It's never the same. The material speaks to things that I know are a quiet engine, from my own work, which is trauma, and how do we negotiate that? How do we deal with it? How do we process it? How do we run from it? And this film felt like the potential to be a Trojan horse to ask those questions while maintaining an accelerated action. But it was grounded in the cost of violence rather than violence for violence’s sake. So long short of it, Chris and I, we have a friendship… real friends in our line of work.”
The Contractor Subverts Audience Expectations
Chris Pine also told MovieWeb that another big theme of The Contractor would be with "assumptions," and how jumping to conclusions can often cause major consequences. While not giving any specifics, Pine teased that the movie will subvert audience expectations.
"I would say what it plays with is probably assumptions," Pine said. "Not to give too much away but there's an assumption made, I think probably by the audience or hopefully by the audience. About this one person's intentions, that's really has a lot to do with racial profiling and some very oblique information that looks bad but is certainly not evidence in and of itself. And in fact, all of it's turned on its head and looks like the gun barrel should be pointed inward instead of outward."
Tarik Saleh directs The Contractor using a screenplay by J.P. Davis. Along with Pine and Foster, the film stars Gillian Jacobs, Eddie Marsan, JD Pardo, Florian Munteanu, and Kiefer Sutherland. Basil Iwanyk and Erica Lee produced for Thunder Road Films and co-produced by Esther Hornstein. Pine also executive produced with Dan Friedkin, Micah Green, Dan Steinman, Jonathan Fuhrman, Tom Lassally, and Josh Bratman.
You can read the official synopsis for the film below.
"Chris Pine stars in the action-packed thriller as Special Forces Sergeant James Harper, who is involuntarily discharged from the Army and cut-off from his pension. In debt, out of options and desperate to provide for his family, Harper contracts with a private underground military force. When the very first assignment goes awry, the elite soldier finds himself hunted and on the run, caught in a dangerous conspiracy and fighting to stay alive long enough to get home and uncover the true motives of those who betrayed him."
The Contractor, which is rated R for violence and language, is released in movie theaters, On Demand, and On Digital on April 1, 2022.