Samaritan review: A Promising premise is wasted by this mediocre film

In a scene just before Amazon Prime’s Samaritan climaxes, the protagonist played by a worn and visibly old Sylvester Stallone tells an exuberant kid “The things is there is good and bad inside each one of us”. It is a rather declarative way of ending a film but given the film’s late narrative twist, it is also a neatly pulled-off message. But cinema isn’t just the messaging, but also the craft of leading you through a journey that makes the message palatable, even if unexpected. In Samaritan, no such thing happens as a film ripe with promise and casted perhaps to perfection, meanders pointlessly before turning around at the end, to reveal it had bright ideas all along, just not the tools to design a decent story around it. It is decent rescue act, loaded with an interesting moral quandary, but it appears in quantity far little, far too late.

Samaritan is the story of the most obviously named white guy from Atlantic City – Joe Smith. Smith picks up garbage, wears a hoodie and keeps to himself. He is also an old man, an aspect of his character that the film does a poor job of exploring. Joe’s life is pre-dated by a famous feud between two superheroes –  the good one being Samaritan and the bad one called Nemesis. A fight to the end, we are told in the prologue, ended with the death of Nemesis. Samaritan has since gone missing too. Of course it has been clear all along, ever since the trailer for the film released that Stallone is the superhero out of commission. His withdrawal from playing saviour, however, isn’t exactly fleshed as much as it is argued over with the diction of someone who has just found what research is.

Joe runs into Sam, played ably but also somewhat annoyingly by Javon Walton (excellent in HBO’s Euphoria). Sam lives on the wrong side of the street so to speak, perpetually harassed by street kids in the kinship of some very bad people. These people have a vague plan to reprise the Nemesis brand and take back the city – to what effect, it is never discussed. Sam, who has been a fan of Samaritan, discovers Joe’s secret until which point the film does nothing that either suggests the creative pragmatism of The Boys or the inspired desperation of Logan (possibly the last good superhero film). It feels like the most uninteresting stroll through the most banal events. Even after the obvious is revealed, the mentor-protégé relationship that we see coming from a distance hardly has the kind of chemistry that Stallone is known to channel with younger actors before.

The bad guys in Samaritan are forgettable stereotypes, the action as convenient and un-racy as it could be and the pyrotechnics themselves, as serviceable as a film of this sort might offer. Directed by Julius Avery, Samaritan often feels like a film burdened by the imposter syndrome. It has no pulse, no sense of purpose and little of its own to say about the cult of the hero or just why we continue to watch these films. The banal action, for instance, adds little of note in a setup that is crying out for interesting characters or someone with a sense of humour. It’s understandable that the film instead wants to take itself seriously, but then it does so by devolving its dramatic capabilities to the action that feels part-borrowed and part forced.

Perhaps the only thing that works for Samaritan, is the casting of Sylvester Stallone, the ageless action hero as an old, in-hiding superhero who is, we are told too late in the film, also afraid of himself. That late reveal feels unearned because the very things that make an ageing superstar fascinating in the context of a superhero film, are erased from the script. Stallone walks around, kicks ass and appears untouchable when he could have been prodded with better dramatic devices. Nobody could have perhaps better embodied the bitterness of losing both strength and storied agility than the man who has played Rocky and Rambo. Unfortunately, Director Julius Avery and his team attempt no such thing.

Samaritan is another addition to culture of superhero films that has by now spawned counter cultures and counters to those cultures. When so much material around superheroes is being sprayed around, you’d expect a film that casts the once-golden-boy (also the only action star to be nominated for an acting Oscar) to also try and elicit an emotional performance, as opposed to a sly, banal, physical one. This is simply Stallone of old, trying to recapture those glorious years alongside a bunch of half-baked actors who neither supply the film with agency or energy. All that promise, and yet, Samaritan can’t become the story it so obviously could have.

Manik Sharma writes on art and culture, cinema, books, and everything in between.

Read all the Latest News, Trending News, Cricket News, Bollywood News, India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.