BootDigest Such a frustrating disappointment

StyleSk8r At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Allison Davies The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Fatma Suarez The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

TheLittleSongbird Steven Seagal has done some good, or at least watchable, films. Particularly 'Under Siege'. He has also done a lot of mediocre and less films, indicative of laziness and that Seagal was well past his sell by date, and a good deal of them are even very bad.'Contract to Kill' is one of the very bad ones. Awful even, and for me if ranking Seagal's filmography from best to worst it would be towards the bottom. Did not expect much, but watched it because Seagal has shown signs that he can be halfway decent and as said not all his films are bad. Also do appreciate the action genre and there are good films out there in the genre, classics even. 'Contract to Kill' is far from that, more closer to a waste of time that shows little signs of trying.Seagal himself gives another lazy and wooden performance that shows that he was not interested and wanted to be somewhere else. His reading-from-an-autocue-like and robotic line delivery in particular betrays that. The rest of the cast are just as poor though in all fairness have little to work with.The characters are ones we know very little about and don't care what happens to happen, so unengaging and one-dimensional they are. The dialogue is risible, with a lot of cheesiness, awkwardness and far too much talk delivered with little emotion or momentum and bordering on the near-incomprehensible.Its excessively talky nature affects severely the pacing, which never comes to life. There is no urgency, let alone tension, intrigue or suspense. The action doesn't feature enough in comparison and suffer from pedestrian choreography and bacon-slicer-like editing. The story is by-the-numbers, dull and not always easy to follow.Direction is flat and ill-at ease, while the sound/soundtrack are one-note and obvious as well as poorly recorded and the whole film looks cheap. And it's not just the editing, the slapdash special effects, drab photography and laughably bad green screen (that was too obvious and jarring) are just as bad.Hate to say it, but to me nothing works in 'Contract to Kill' and it is an awful mess in every way. 1/10 Bethany Cox

Uriah43 Concerned about potential collaboration between a ruthless Mexican drug cartel and an Islamic terrorist organization a retired assassin by the name of "John Harmon" (Steven Seagal) is called upon to foment discord between the two groups who are meeting in Istanbul to cement their agreement. He is also given an alternate assignment to take out a specific target responsible for an airplane bombing months earlier. Since both organizations are large and well protected the first thing he does is to assemble a small team which includes a beautiful American agent named "Zara Hayek" (Jemma Dallender) and a former special forces operative with a penchant for electronic devices by the name of "Matthew Sharp" (Russell Wong). Needless to say, although both of them are good with weapons and hand-to-hand fighting, the majority of the killing is left for John who makes it look almost effortless. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this movie had an interesting plot but it suffered from poor editing and bad direction. For starters, there didn't seem to be a smooth transition from one scene to another which gave the film a low-quality and uneven effect. Likewise,there were some scenes which tended to focus on extended fight sequences--and John's martial abilities—even though the events at the time mandated that he finish off his opponent quickly in order to help one of his colleagues in a desperate situation. But then, why make an effort to save your partner right away when you can play cat-and-mouse with a bad guy and demonstrate your superior technique in the process? In short, I believe that with more competent direction this film had the potential to be a much better movie than it turned out to be. However, because the movie lacked that necessary component I have rated it accordingly. Slightly below average.

johndoyle-90516 Sounds like Steven Seagal read his lines with the help of a bottle of booze. Movies like this keep REDBOX filled with fresh titles, not so fresh acting or directing and writing. My advice save yourself the hassle and the $1.50. At 65 I guess his ass kicking days are over, to cheap to bring in stunt doubles to spice up scenes. Steven please retire and let your legacy stand the test of time, (or not)....

jamdifo Let's face it, most people watch Seagal to see him fight. The story is always the same, he's the best in whatever agency he's in, he always picks his own team, and beats the bad guy(s). We know the story, but we watch him for his fights.Unfortunately, he hardly fights anymore. He put out 6 movies this year and there was not one good fight scene. The last good fight scene he did was against the Russian in Driven to Kill. That was in 2009, 7 years ago. Now he just shoots people in the head or the few fight scenes he does are so edited, you don't know who does what.I know he doesn't have control over how the movie turns out, but he does control the fight scenes. Its become painfully obvious he doesn't care, and I'm done expecting any good fight scenes from him anymore. If you see recent videos on YouTube or photos, you can see he is vastly overweight. How does a 7th degree in Aikido become so undisciplined in diet? How does he accept his pitiful choreographed fight scenes? Another amazing thing with this movie, for the umpteenth time he has sex with a gorgeous woman with his clothes on! This seems like a running joke in all his movies in the last 10 years or so. Director Keoni Waxman, who has directed Seagal at least 7 times, must be having a field day with this joke. Again, Seagal don't seem to get it.In conclusion, there are no good fight scenes and this is not the action star of 20 years ago. The only scene worth watching is the sex scene for the comedy and actress Jemma Dallender fit physique. I hope she got compensated well.