Samaritan (2022)

FULL SPOILER-FREE REVIEW @ https://www.msbreviews.com/movie-reviews/samaritan-spoiler-free-review "Samaritan holds quite an interesting premise, but sadly, it's yet another addition to the list of films with wasted potential. What could have been a truly dark, fascinating story about two superpowered brothers with distinct views on life is, instead, a bland, predictable, formulaic narrative with less Sylvester Stallone than expected. The cast offers good performances, but choosing to focus on Javon Walton's generic character when the prologue leaves room for such an engrossing exploration of the past proves to be a terrible decision. Action-wise, it lacks the energy and creativity necessary to entertain most viewers, despite the dedicated stunt work. A tad frustrating in retrospect." Rating: C-

Samaritan is a by the numbers action flick but that's not necessarily a bad thing. One of the key problems with a lot of modern movie making, is the constant need to experiment and at times, inject social messages into what it supposed to be entertainment. Samaritan follows a well known and well worn, by the numbers, action film formula. It tries to throw in a twist I saw coming pretty early on but that's alright. In essence, this film is inherently watchable. Stallone still has excellent screen presence and the chemistry, between him and the young boy, works well. My advice, ignore the carping from the soy latte class of movie goers who bemoan a lack of sophistication. Its often the simple things in life that are most enjoyable and this is one of them. In summary, Samaritan wont win any accolades for high brow cinema but what it does, it does competently enough to be reasonably enjoyable and entertaining. For many of us, tired of shallow cinema sophistry and intellectual pretension, that's what really matters.

"Sam" (Javon Walton) lives with his mum in a run down housing project in Granite City (no, not Aberdeen) where he is frequently bullied. After the timely intervention of his neighbour "Mr. Smith" (Sylvester Stallone) the youngster starts to believe that his rescuer may be none other than the eponymous super-hero who went missing some twenty years earlier. Could he be back to save the city from terminal decline at the hands of his "Nemesis"? Well despite the reticence of "Smith", the young man is determined that he can cajole his newfound friend into saving society. As the pair start to bond, we realise that this young man is decent and has potential and that his elderly chum has quite a few skeletons in his closet - though perhaps not quite the ones anyone is expecting. Sadly, though the young Walton is quite effective, the underused Stallone is just going through the motions and the story is an amalgam of loads of other DC/Marvel style affairs with some fairly pedestrian writing underpinning a disappointingly under-developed story. The ending has a twist but it's not really enough to redeem the rest of this rather predictable effort that, though it looks fine, is all pretty forgettable fayre from all concerned.