Reviewed by

Christopher Armstead

It would be totally unfair to trash ‘Final Contract’, easy, but unfair.  I assume when a team of filmmakers get together to plan a project they have a goal in mind.  Guillermo Del Toro had a goal when he created ‘Pan’s Labyrinth’ just as Steven Frears had a goal when sat down to helm ‘The Queen’.  J.J. Abrams had a particular something in mind while shooting ‘Mission Impossible III’ just as Len Weisman was shooting for something in particular while casting his ridiculously hot wife (Kate Beckinsdale) in those ‘Underworld’ movies.  Whether you liked those movies or not, I think those are examples of filmmakers achieving their desired goals, and German director Axel Sand’s plot-hole ridden, poorly scripted, suspectly acted 90 minute car chase movie ‘Final Contract’ hit it’s goals as well.  I may not have liked the end result of those goals, but I pretty sure you can’t make something like this by accident.

 

A German production but spoken in English, ‘Final Contract’ is the tale of express delivery driver David (Drew Fuller), working for his uncle while longing from afar for his fellow employee Jenny (Tanja Wenzel).  Jenny is off to Barcelona for some unknown scholarship, but would stay if David just said boo.  Tanja has even set up a little sexy dinner date for the two of them for that evening, but circumstance intervenes when a supposed undercover cop named Lara (Alison King) jumps in his car on the run from a couple of heavily armed Ford Explorers and begins the first of many spectacular car chase scenes.  We won’t get into all of the silly little plot holes in this thing, mainly because I don’t want a review of ‘Final Contract’ to be my first novel, but Lara asks David to drop her off at a hotel, when maybe being a cop who is being shot at, she probably should have asked to be dropped off a police station perhaps.

And of course as the film goes on, there is the question as to who and why she was getting shot at in the first place, but that’s just another silly question we are left to ponder, without answer, in this here film.

 

Turns out Lara is actually ace assassin Larco who is knocking off witnesses for an upcoming mob trial.  After seducing poor pathetic David, Lara then proceeds to hoodwink the incredibly stupid German police into thinking that lame ass David is the assassin Larco.  Not knowing where to turn, David calls poor jilted Jenny so that she can get shot at some and the car chases then kick into high gear.  Eventually evil Lara kidnaps angelic Jenny and uses her to force David to kill the last witness.  What, pray tell, will David do?

 

Words cannot describe how incredibly stupid this film is.  In a recent review of the Japanese fantasy film ‘Shinobi’, I commented that it worked because though the world was fantastic, the characters and motivations were very realistic.  In ‘Final Contract’ the world is quite real, but the characters do things that only an unimaginative script writer could conceive.  But, again, I’m not going delve into this because I sincerely believe the powers that be knew this already.  The focus for ‘Final Contract’ was a narrow and concise one.  This movie had all of two women in it, but good lord were they hot.  We’re talking Victoria Secret type hot.  These are women that Tom Brady and / or Derek Jeter wouldn’t mind being seen with.  Then we have our star Drew Fuller, who I’m told is as hunky as they get and has International Male underwear model written all over him.  Now all three of these great looking folks aren’t much for acting, but again, if the filmmakers wanted better actors, they could have gotten better actors.  Getting better looking people however might have been more difficult.

 

Then there’s the reason this film exists in the first place and that’s car chase scenes.  Cars flip, and roll, and fly and explode.  Cars crash through windows, and power slide, and ride on two wheels and explode.  There are other vehicles too as helicopters fly and shoot bullets while speed boats accelerate down rivers and Ducatti’s speed away from slick black Mercedes-Benz sedans which explode.  This is a film that knows on which side of the bread the butter is on.

 

Yes, ‘Final Contract’ is stupid to a fault and has the brain of a stuffed Twinky Winky doll but it has pretty people in car chases.  As Christopher Walken once famously yelled in an SNL skit ‘I need more Cow Bell!’  Director Alex Sand had to have screamed ‘We need MORE CAR CHASES!’  Sometimes people, it’s a good thing to reach your desired goals, no matter how low you may have set them.

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