REVIEW: Samaritan

    It's only in a landscape like today's, one where the superhero myth is so deeply intwined in the pop culture fabric, that a deconstructionist superhero movie like Samaritan could feel warranted. There's no shortage of contemporary examples from which to learn. This makes the film's ultimate stumble all the more mysterious and all the more disappointing.

    The film's premise gives it every chance to be a thoughtful piece within the superhero craze and independent of it. Here's a story about a boy lacking a strong male role model just hovering above poverty and wondering where the heroes have gone. All the while, his community teeters on disarray and anarchy as the powers that be neglect the larger population. It's the kind of world where no one's expecting a hero, but the hopeful among us sure are hoping for one. 

    Thirteen-year-old Sam thinks he's found the answer to his prayers in his aged neighbor, Joe. After witnessing a few displays of altruism and superhuman strength, Sam becomes convinced Joe is actually the long-lost superhero, Samaritan. And why not? Maybe your local garbageman actually is the underappreciated superhero your community needs. Sam tries to pull Joe back into the battlefield just as tensions in the city are rising, when the world really needs a superhero. 

    A lot of the film's more tasty ideas would land better if they were allowed to reveal themselves naturally through the action instead of dug up and flagged by dialogue. Note the way Cyrus explains through dialogue why supervillain Nemesis was actually the good guy not two minutes after he first appears on screen. How thoughtful of him to drop the movie's antithesis so early ... Arguably the film's real novelty hinges on a third act reveal, but even that impact dissipates almost immediately on arrival by confused commentary. It's a shame. This movie really would work so much better if it didn't try to explain itself so much.

    Stallone affords drops of vulnerability in small amounts, but his performance coasts on a flat level of standard Stallone gruffness. Meanwhile, relative newcomer Javon Walton might actually be a fantastic actor, but he needs more textured material. (Apparently he's in Euphoria? Perhaps he's better served there.) In the role of Sam, he's neither plucky enough to be endearing nor hardened enough to be tragic. 

    Walton arguably has better chemistry with the film's antagonist, the vengeful Cyrus, played electrically by Pilou Asbæk. He's on fire every second he's onscreen, and Asbæk gets more creative than simply playing him like a mustache-twirler. In fact, it's only when he dips into playing a literal supervillain that the illusion feels out of synch.

    The film's director has described this as the product of Unbreakable and Finding Forrester, which certainly explains the movie's overcast aesthetics. But without any variance, this grunge eats up the film's bids for sincerity. Where are the flickering colors of comic-book glory that Sam is supposed to be chasing? This might be more of a missed opportunity than a full-bred flaw, but the lack of dialogue gives the movie a muted flavor that casts an umbrella. Moments that might come off as operatic in a more thought-out film read as trite and awkward here. Lines like "Nemesis was destroyed by his own hate," feel inorganic in such a grounded world, especially when they come from the mouth of a self-professed cynic.

    And that's the movie's problem. It knows that defeatism and hope are in constant opposition, and that superhero mythology is an ideal vehicle to explore this duality. It wants to land somewhere on that spectrum, but Samaritan spreads itself too thin and hopes that if it pads itself with easily packaged takeaways, we won't notice the difference. The end result isn't particularly bad, but it is a missed opportunity.

                            --The Professor