Samaritan ☆☆

Starring:Sylvester Stallone, Javon ‘Wanna’ Walton, Pilou Asbæk, Dascha Polanco, and Moises Arias

Directed by: Julius Avery

Tagline: 25 years ago the world’s greatest hero vanished.

ou’d think that anyone who makes movies – or watches movies or is even vaguely aware of the fact that movies exist – would know that it isn’t a very good idea to give away what is meant to be the climactic plot twist right at the beginning of the film. But it appears that the folks who made Samaritan did not get that memo.

The action drama starts by giving us the backstory of its titular character through opening exposition that makes it glaringly obvious, literally within the first minute of the film, exactly what the big reveal is ultimately going to be. Which is a pity, because it’s a twist that would actually have been interesting had they managed to conceal the reveal.

And concealing it wouldn’t have been all that hard. Simply nix the expo-dump intro – or at least change a few details that will make absolutely no difference to the plot but will downgrade the predictability level from “painfully obvious” to “kinda saw that coming” – and problem solved.

But instead of letting us piece things together as the story goes along, the film gives us a poorly written introduction to the heroic Samaritan and the villainous Nemesis, superhuman twins who become antagonists, and, during a confrontation at the city’s power plant, are both apparently killed in an explosion. But fans remain hopeful that Samaritan survived the battle and is still alive.

One such fan is young Sam (Javon ‘Wanna’ Walton), a boy being raised by his single, financially-strapped mother (Dascha Polanco), who starts to suspect that his neighbour Joe (Sylvester Stallone), a garbage collector who lives across the street, is the missing superhero.

As Sam begins to knock around with the wrong people, a threat emerges in the form of gang leader Cyrus (Pilou Asbæk), an ardent admirer of Nemesis, who plans to put the city in peril.

Things unfold exactly how you’d expect, as you wait for the film to unveil its inevitable twist while you sit and hope that the movie will go off in a different direction, which it doesn’t. The acting isn’t spectacular, but is serviceable for a popcorn flick; the proceedings are riddled with nonsensical elements (it’s the kind of film where people will extendedly stand in a burning building and not so much as cough, let alone die of heat exposure and smoke inhalation); and the execution overall feels very low-budget. But the movie could still have easily been significantly more powerful with better writing and better handling of what had the potential to be an interesting concept. The whole “there is good and bad in everyone” idea could have made for some fascinating exploration. Instead, Samaritan drowns in its own predictability and squanders the opportunity to create an inventive, thought-provoking action caper with an exciting take on the superhero genre.

Rating system: *Not on your life * ½ If you really must waste your time
** Hardly worth the bother ** ½ Okay for a slow afternoon only *** Good enough for a look see
*** ½ Recommended viewing **** Don’t miss it **** ½ Almost perfect ***** Perfection