“Not as strong as I one was, things start to fall apart when you stop caring, and I stopped caring a long time ago.” Joe Smith (Sylvester Stallone)
The new thriller, Samaritan, could have used its own good Samaritan to save it from being a boilerplate B movie overly cliched. However, because director Julius Avery has experience in graphic novels, the visual experience is satisfying enough to save the film Samaritan from excess formula.
Samaritan and Granite City have their savior, Joe Smith/Stallone, who lends a certain je ne sais quoi, an old-time wisdom flavored with a world weariness that Stallone’s honed from the first time he was hurt in First Blood through defeats in the Rocky franchise. If you didn’t know Joe was a hero, watch him brandish a sledge hammer like Thor does his mallet. Stallone remains a viable action hero even at age 76.
Connecting Joe with young 13-year-old Sam (Javon “Wanna” Walton) is the heart of the film that depicts Joe smashing some bad guys enough to make Sam think Joe is the Samaritan hero of old. Sam has been a fan of Samaritan forever--most people think his nemesis, Nemesis, died in a fire, and Samaritan just vanished.
As the thriller trundles through the usual tropes including Joe as reluctant hero, the kid getting kidnapped, and the bad guy, Cyrus (Pilou Asbaeik), doing bad things with his band of Clockwork-Orange hooligans, Stallone’s Joe remains stolid and vulnerable, mostly because, if he is Samaritan, he is constantly trying to save
someone, albeit he’s now hiding from any publicity
It's more tiring to try to recount this tired story, which is saved by Stallone’s “Rocky” persona, as American as Superman, as loveable as Mr. Rogers. In the adventure’s favor is the theme of choosing good over evil, a point an early teen faces regularly in this film and life.
Also favorable is the dark, bleak production design by Christopher Glass and Doug Berry. It’s worthy of Blade Runner and Bat Man without the vehicles and smart buildings. Like Samaritan, the design represents the degenerative power of age and lost dreams.
Stay to the end because the plot twist is as good as anything else out there this year. Samaritan is released by Amazon Prime for free on your subscription. Explore the Stallone charisma; you could do worse.
Samaritan
Director: Jules Avery (Overlord)
Screenplay: Bragi F. Schut (Escape Room)
Cast: Sylvester Stallone (Rocky)
Run Time: 1 h 42s
Rating: PG-13
John DeSando, a Los Angeles Press Club first-place winner for National Entertainment Journalism, hosts NPR’s It’s Movie Time and co-hosts Cinema Classics as well as podcasts Back Talk and Double Take out of WCBE 90.5 FM. Contact him at JohnDeSando52@gmail.com
