The Pact (1998)

LOOSELY PACT

An interesting premise and some sincere, well-thought out performances are lost in a muddled and sometimes pedestrian script. THE PACT opens with young Gregg Sherman witnessing the murder of his parents by a pair of hitmen. He manages to escape, and agrees to testify in order to bring their mob boss down. To do this, he is placed in the witness protection program and shipped off to an elite boarding school in Montreal. Given a new look, a new identity and a whole new set of concerns, Gregg finds himself lost until he strikes up a friendship with streetwise Lenny Dalton. Dalton teaches him self defense and Gregg (now Steve Spencer) teaches Dalton how to swim. Little does Spencer realize...but no real plot revelations to spoil it for those who haven't seen yet.
Rider Strong as Lenny and Adam Frost as Sherman/Spencer offer good performances, contrasting nicely and both turning out likeable. Lisa Zane is sincere and serious as the headmistress; John Heard is appropriately governmental as the WPP head honcho.
The problem is that the script offers little suspense, and has the characters, especially Lenny, doing dumb things, and missing key clues, like Tampa being on the Atlantic side of Florida. This should have been a big point for Lenny. There is also no explanation as to why Jeffrey Teal gets upset when the witness protection program is mentioned. By the time the movie reaches its painfully obvious conclusion, the steam has run out for the viewer, and although the ending satisfies to a point, it's flat and predictable.
THE PACT could have been a better movie if the script had just been a little more compact and less predictable. November 24, 2004

The truly compelling "bad guy".

"The Pact" is a very amusing film. Rider Strong's character is a wonderful-and unexpectedly complex-villain; the viewer occaisionally finds himself/herself rooting for him by mistake, instead of the slightly less fascinating "good guy". Unfortunately parts of the movie can get downright cliché. Yet this movie pulls it off; the ending may not be much of a surprise, but it is quite entertaining and pleasing all the same. "The Pact" may not be ground-breakingly original, but does what movies should do: it entertains, and does it fabulously. August 25, 2002

One of the best movies Rider Strong has done so far!!!

I think this is one of rider's best movies that he has done so far. It is really hard to play the bad person, so he did a excellent job. I loved the plot to the movie and the way there wasn't a dull moment when I watched it. The end really surprised me because I thought that Lennie was just some average bad person that was out to kill that kid for his boss. But when I got to the end it was more than that. And I am proud to say that nobody could have done better at playing lenny than Rider did. He was wonderful and the dvd is great and I can't wait until I get my copy of "the Pact". May 27, 2001

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